Alien Saga
by Beastbot X
Summary: The Maximals and Predacons are abducted, alliances are formed, memories are unlocked, battles are fought... and the Beast Wars will never be the same again. Fifth in my Beast Wars series.
1. Chap 1: The Coming

Alien Saga, Chapter 1: The Coming  
by Beastbot

_(NOTE: Any scenes in this chapter of the alien saga, as well as any others, that have JUST the aliens talking in them, are translated into English. The aliens are actually speaking in their own language to each other. Also, special thanks to Foster Jones for hte idea of Sigma Prime.) _

"Hyperspace jump to planet 3.4562.89-1 will occur in approximately three standard Vexoran days," the ship's main computer rambled off to its captain.

"Excellent," the captain said as he clicked his midnight black claws together. "Soon, very soon, we will remove these Transformer pests that are threatening the Project."

The captain was just about to settle into his own thoughts when another of his race burst through the entrance bay doors. The captain reluctantly turned around to face the Vexoran that had interrupted his thoughts.

"Requesting permission to speak, sir," the "intruder" said emotionlessly, saluting his captain in the standard Vexoran greeting by putting his two claws on his right lower hand on his chest and making a figure eight with them on his main body trunk.

"Proceed, Scarem."

"Captain Tarad, I have two important things to tell you. First and foremost, Transformer 04 and Transformer 11 are ready for their departure. We have installed the program you recommended, sir."

"Excellent. And the second?"

"Well, uh... we have located your brother Taran on the planet as well, just as you anticipated."

"Even more excellent. My brother will pay dearly for his crimes against his people. Dismissed, Scarem."

* * *

Cheetor gulped as the large black creature with four arms, each with two humongous claws on them, stomped up to Cheetor, an evil grin on its misfigured face.

Cheetor had been badly damaged in the fight with this creature in the canyon. He had discovered it during a routine patrol, and had tried to contact Optimus, but for some reason, no one had answered. Just as he was certain he wouldn't live another second as the creature raised its upper two arms to attack him, the creature dissapated into thin air, and in its place was....Tarantulas?

Tarantulas leaned over to the bewildered Cheetor, until the two 'bots' faces were so close Cheetor could feel Tarantulas' hot breath against his face.

"Beware, Cheetor! We are coming," Tarantulas said, chuckling a bit as he did so. "And when we come, you are all doomed! Bwahahahahah!"

Cheetor screamed in terror as Tarantulas took out his chainsaw blaster and aimed it at Cheetor. Cheetor closed his eyes as he heard the click of the trigger, and....Cheetor bumped his head!?

Cheetor opened his eyes and rubbed his head, taking in his surroundings. He was in his quarters....it had all been a dream, just a horrible dream...

Or was it? Cheetor thought. It had been more real than the average dream.....more like it was a prophecy of things to come.

The Transmetal II cheetah quickly pushed the thought out of his head. There was no way a huge creature could morph into Tarantulas. It was just one of those things...

Deciding that he couldn't go back to sleep for a while, Cheetor transformed to beast mode and walked out of his quarters, then down the main hall of the Maximal base, his metal claws clicking softly on the cold metal floor.

As he entered the main control room, he noticed that not even Rattrap was up at this late hour, the rat-bot asleep in his chair. Cheetor quickly checked out all the scanners- yep, no Pred activity. He then carefully snuck out the main entrance of the base, and into the cold, crisp air of the night.

Just as Cheetor was about to take a short walk around the base to relieve his nerves, he saw something a few meters from the entrance. It was a white form, with some silver and blue. It was in the shape of a.....falcon?

Cheetor squinted his eyes at the limp form, just to be sure of what he was about to say.

"Airazor?"

* * *

Buzzclaw hated his job. He, one of the smartest 'bots this side of the Horse Nebula, was stuck mopping up the hallways of the Predacon base!

"RazzinfrazzinMegatroni'llgethimohandtheni'llriphimupinlittlebitsand-" Buzzclaw was interrupted from his ramblings when he thought he saw a purple figure as he passed the window.

_No one's on patrol yet, it's too early,_ he thought. _Could it be a Maximal? No, none of them are purple....._

Buzzclaw looked out the window again, this time more carefully. The figure was not moving, and it was in the shape of a mechanical pterodactyl.

_I'd better go tell ol' Megs about this,_ Buzzclaw thought as he instantly dropped his mop and ran toward the Predacon leaders' quarters, glad to take any excuse to get out of his job.

* * *

Airazor woke up to find many unusual Maximals staring at her. The only ones she recognized were Rattrap, and.....Blackarachnia?!

Without warning, Airazor jumped up off the table she had been laying on, and maximized. The creamy-white transmetal falcon gave way to a feathery, brown-and-yellow figure with large wings, and talon machine guns under her hands. She quickly pointed those machine guns at Blackarachnia.

"Freeze, Predacon!" Airazor said, ready to engage her weapons at any moment.

As all the Maximals looked on in surprise and confusion at Airazor, but Blackarachnia barely twitched.

"Easy, I'm on your side now, Feathers," the former Predacon said smoothly.

Airazor held her machine guns up for a little bit longer, as if not believing what the Predacon said, but, after realizing that none of the other Maximals seemed ready to engage Blackarachnia, put her machine guns down in confusion.

Airazor was at a loss for words. What she had just witnessed in the last few seconds was pretty hard to take in all at once.

"I'm sure you have a lot of questions, Airazor," said a voice behind her that sounded like Optimus'. "But right now, I think you should tell us what happened to you during your....absence."

Airazor turned around to see where Optimus was, but instead saw a robot with a bat beast form. Optimus couldn't change his beast he? Just as Airazor was about to ask Optimus this, Optimus seemed to read Airazor's thoughts and shook his head slowly.

"Later, Airazor. What you have to say may be important, and we need to hear it."

"Okay," Airazor said nervously. "Here goes..."

"When I was 'abducted', so to speak, I went unconscious soon after the vines grabbed me. I blacked out for a while, and when I woke up, I was strapped down to a metal examination table, it looked like. I was in a large metal room, large as a Terran sports stadium, almost. The structure was the same, too, with a large, open area in the center, where I was, and several rows of seats around the edges, each row progressing slowly toward the ceiling. There were hundreds, maybe even thousands, of creatures in these seats. They all looked basically the same, all like they were made of a black goo-like substance. They looked like they could shapeshift if they wanted to, but they all were in the same formation in front of me, which I only can assume is their original formation. They had four arms, each with a few claws on them, and two legs, again each with a few claws. Their body trunks were skinny, and seemed to do no more than connect their appendages. Their heads didn't really seem to have any eyes, only a small mouth with a lot of sharp teeth in them."

"As I looked around, I saw three other Transformers in the arena with me, all of them unconscious. They were Terrorsaur, Scorponok, and Tigatron. Don't ask me how Terrorsaur and Scorponok got there, I don't know."

"I didn't have any time to examine the room any further, because I was interrupted by a voice that came out of nowhere. It probably was from the alien version of a loudspeaker, because that's what it sounded like. It said, 'Now we will subject Species 5983291, Members 07 and 11 to the plutonium alloy 39482. Take notes on what the results are, and enter them into the databank as you leave.' Well, it didn't actually say THAT, it spoke in another language, but, after spending a year in an alien ship, you get to understand some of their language. After the voice said these words, a large machine-that's all I can say, I really can't describe it- materialized out of nowhere. The next thing I know, a bright light enveloped me, and then I blacked out."

"When I came to, I was a Transmetal, as was Terrorsaur. Scorponok and Tigatron"- at this point Airazor would have had tears coming out of her eyes if she were human- "were taken apart, their parts strewn over their examination tables. Scorponok had just been taken apart into arms, legs, and whatnot, but Tigatron had been taken apart completely, and everything from nuts and bolts to heat sinks and memory chips were all over his table. I didn't see his spark anywhere, so I assumed he was....dead."

"The aliens then lead me out of the arena and through what seemed like endless corridors, until I came to a door at the end of one of the hallways. The aliens shoved me in it, closed the entrance hole, and left. Although I saw no lock, the door wouldn't budge. Over the next year, it was just tests with me and Terrorsaur, then the room for a while, then tests, then the room. Some of the tests or experiments were while I was awake, some when I was unconscious, some painful, some not. I eventually learned some of their basic language after being stuck with them for so long."

"One day, one of the aliens told me that I was to be sent back to the planet we call Earth, or Terra. They downloaded some information into me, information that I can't crack, I can only transfer it to Sentinel......where is Sentinel, anyway? And, this doesn't look like the Axalon..." Airazor said, looking around her at the yellow and orange walls.

"I'm sure you will all explain that later, anyway. Well, after that, it's pretty self-explanatory. Again, I was knocked unconscious after the encoded information had been downloaded into me, and the next thing I know, I'm here," Airazor said, motioning to the walls around her.

"Now," she said, turning toward the rest of the Maximals, "what happened while I was away?"

* * *

The first thing Terrorsaur felt when he became conscious was a hard slap in the face.

"Terrorsaur, wake up!" a voice exclaimed, a voice that belonged to a person he hated- Megatron.

Terrorsaur opened his eyes weakly, even though he was wide awake and feeling strong enough to stand. Always the exaggerator, though, he decided to act like he was worse off than he actually was.

"Megatron, is that you?" Terrorsaur said weakly.

"Of course it's me, you idiot," Megatron said angrily, banging Terrorsaur in the head again. "Just because I changed beast modes doesn't mean my face looks completely different. Now quit playing weak, even though you aren't far from it, and tell me what happened."

Terrorsaur stared hard at Megatron. Although Megatron still looked like his normal, cold self, Terrorsaur thought he saw a glimpse of something he had never thought possible on the Predacon leader's face- fear.

"Sure..." Terrorsaur started, slowly standing up to his full beast mode height, which wasn't more than three feet tall. "But let me change to my robot mode first! Terrorsaur, terrorize!"

The Transmetal purple-and-gold pterosaur with large green claws folded into a robot about as tall as Waspinator. The green claws had now become his hands, and Terrorsaur looked a bit more lithe than his old mode, and pointed. He had small pads on the bottom of his feet, which Megatron could only assume were exhaust ports for feet jets. They were to help Terrorsaur fly in his robot mode, since the pterodactyl's wings had shrunk considerably in his robot mode.

"It all started when I accidently fell in the lava," Terrorsaur began. "I just started to feel the lava burn my outer armor, when, suddenly, I was in a large room, with that idiot of yours Scorponok. I eventually found out that I was in a closed-in room with just enough energon to keep us healthy, in some alien ship. We basically were just bored to death for the next few months, although the aliens had told us, in our language, that we would be having visitors soon. Finally, the aliens took us out of that cursed chamber and led us to a large area of some sort..."

* * *

As Airazor finished downloading the information she was given by the aliens into Teletran I, her eyes stopped glowing green and Teletran I droned on that information was downloaded, and that it was currently decrypting and decoding the information. The computer would have the information ready for displaying in about a cycle.

Airazor sighed. Things certainly were in full swing here. Some other alien, that wasn't the kind Airazor had described, called Prometheus, had infested Rhinox's body and taken control of it and allied with the Predacons. Prometheus' host, at least, Airazor had nothing to worry about from, considering the bot was weak and had no weapons. Cheetor had turned into a Transmetal II, Dinobot had died and come back as a Transmetal II on the Predacon's side, Blackarachnia had joined the Maximals,and the fuzor Silverbolt that Optimus had mentioned to her just a day or so before she was abducted had been reconfigured into an original Transformer. Optimus himself had changed twice, once to a humongous Transmetal when his spark united with Prime's for a day or so, then he had been assassinated by a new transformer named Ramulus and had been given a new body, with his beast mode that of a bat's. A large 'bot named Rampage with an indestructible spark had come here a while back, and had recently gotten a little band together consisting of Dinobot Transmetal II and another new 'bot, Crossfire. A rogue Maximal named Depth Charge had also come here seeking Rampage, and had recently gotten a little band together as well, consisting of another two new recuits named Cybershark and Claw Jaw. Ramulus' partner in crime, Beastbot, had assassinated Megatron, and the Pred leader himself was given a new body as well, this time with the beast mode of a crocodile. Inferno had also been changed into a Transmetal and had been renamed Scavenger. Boy, and she thought a lot of things had been going on where SHE was.

Airazor was interrupted by a loud beep from the computer. All the other Maximals, as well as herself, stared at the main screen as the computer displayed the information it had decrypted. It was a letter of some sort, presumably from the aliens, of whom Airazor had not yet learned the race's name.

* * *

To: Transformer species, Maximal side

Greetings. I am sure Unit: Airazor has told you about her stay on our ship. We have sent her back for a reason other than to see you again, however. At approximately 11:20 A.M. Terra time, we will arrive at this planet. We will "abduct" you, so to speak, so that you will not ruin the Project any more than you already have. If we would have left you alone and if you would have behaved the way we predicted you would of, you Maximals would have won the Beast Wars and taken Unit: Megatron back to Cybertron, but you would of accidently of left Unit: Waspinator behind with you. The early humans would have found Waspinator and would have worshiped him as some sort of god. He would influence human thinking, and he would indirectly cause them to be neutral during the 3rd Cybertronian War, which you all call the Great War. Thus, the Decepticons would have won, and, as you can see, this would upset the balance of history drastically. Thus, we must take you off this planet. Be prepared when we come for you. Resistance will not be tolerated.

* * *

The only Maximal to say anything after they read the message was Rattrap.

"Oh, slag."

* * *

Megatron was not happy. First and foremost, the information Terrorsaur had downloaded into his main computer told him that the aliens would be here at 11:20 A.M., Earth time. His internal computer told him it was 10:55 A.M. That meant they had less than half an hour to get ready to defend themselves from the aliens.

Secondly, Terrorsaur was back. He had thought he had gotten rid of that traitor for good.

Megatron sighed. This was not going to be easy. On all his plans that had failed, they had failed because of one mishap or thing forgotten. This time, they would need a miracle to fend these aliens off. Megatron didn't know how to do it, but he had to try. He would not let his promises of universal conquest be taken away from him so easily.

As Megatron came into the main room, he heard the familiar click of guns being loaded, ammo being stocked, and weapons being stored in subspaces. He looked around. Everyone except Tarantulas and Prometheus were here. Where were those idiots? Didn't they realize the situation at hand?!

* * *

Tarantulas walked into his quarters, only to hear an echoing voice as he entered.

"How nice of you to drop in, Tarantulas. Want a spot of tea? If I were you, I'd enjoy these last few moments of peace while you can."

Tarantulas turned to find the owner of the voice. It was Prometheus was sitting in robot mode on one of Tarantulas' chairs, his legs crossed, sipping a cup of tea.

"What?! How did you get here!? This laboratory is protected by several security systems!" Tarantulas yelled at Prometheus, bewildered.

Prometheus just smirked, calm as ever. "I have my ways. Now, let's not worry about that. Sit down, enjoy yourself. It's the last few moments of peace you'll ever get."

Tarantulas, if was a human, would be sweating now. "I-I don't know what you're talking about," he said nervously.

"Don't play stupid, Tarantulas," Prometheus said, suddenly serious. "Or should I say....Taran?"

Tarantulas' eye opened up wide at the use of his name. Then he suddenly narrowed his eye again.

"And don't think I don't know what you are either, Prometheus. Don't you think I've known ever since you broke off of Buzzclaw?"

Prometheus smirked again. "I know that, I'm not stupid either. I knew you were playing the ol' don't-tell-the-leader-cause-then-he'll-ask-how-did-I-know game." Prometheus than suddenly looked at his wrist, pretending there was an invisible watch there, and tsk-tsked.

"Oh, now look at that," he said, acting saddened. "This time we've spent arguing has used all your free time up, because the ship is arriving right....about....now."

* * *

"Optimus, get yer butt over here! Something's coming through the wormhole, and it's big!" Rattrap yelled.

Optimus promptly ran over to the main screen, and took a look. A large object was making its way through the wormhole- scratch that, a very large object. Scratch that, an extremely large object.

The object finally came through the wormhole, followed by a few smaller objects, resumably smaller ships. The object was spherical-shaped, and roughly the size of Spain. It appeared to be the main alien ship, and it began to launch smaller objects, presumably fighters, as soon as it finished coming through the wormhole.

Rattrap gulped.

"They're heeeere....."


	2. Chap 2: The Invasion

Alien Saga, Chapter 2: The Invasion  
by Beastbot

"Have we launched the fighters, Scourge?"

The four-armed young black alien nodded his head. "All are launched, Captain Tarad, and are heading toward the area of the planet where the Transformers are. The Devastation is heading toward the main group of Maximals, the Arachis is heading toward the main group of Predacons, and the smaller fighters, the Annhilator, Red Moon, and the Comet are heading toward the groups headed by Units Ramulus, Depth Charge, and Rampage, respectively."

"And how are our...other...guests doing?"

"They seem to have given up hope of getting out, sir." Scourge snickered a bit at this.

"Good, good. Now, get back to work," Tarad said emotionlessly, swiveling in his seat to stare out the main view screen at the blue-and-green planet below.

Scourge turned back to the control panel he was working on, and groaned inwardly. He secretly hated Captain Tarad, as did his younger brother Scarem. This mightier-than-thou attitude he had was really starting to get on Scourge's nerves...

* * *

Rampage ducked behind a tree, just missing the massive blast that tore up the ground where he was a split second ago. He and his crew had spotted the alien ship come through the wormhole only about ten minutes ago, and the fighters the ship had launched were already in the stratosphere! Rampage wanted to see the alien's technology, maybe there was some way he could infuse it into himself....

Rampage was interrupted by his thoughts by another loud blast nearby. He chanced a peek up at the ship looming a couple hundred feet above him. The ship was probably a couple hundred yards across, with a few massive weapons on its underside that fired enormous particle beams that vaporized just about anything they touched. It was in a ovular shape, much like some 20th century UFO sightings, which explained a lot. Rampage fired a few more missles at it, the ran away as fast as he could as another blast scorched the tree he had been leaning on. The missles' aim was true, and went straight for the particle beam cannons, but just as the missles were about to hit it, they instead exploded suddenly, blocked by the ship's invisible shield. Rampage cursed silently as he reloaded his missle launcher. He ran over to where Crossfire and Dinobot were, a few hundred yards away, all the while dodging particle beam blasts, and ducked behind the rock outcopping they were hiding behind.

"You realize it is stupid to hide behind here," Rampage said, stating the obvious.

"What other choice would we have!?" Crossfire yelled, trying to be heard over a nearby particle blast.

"Well," Rampage contemplated, "We could...ATTACK!"

At the word, the trio opened fire on the ship, hoping to somehow knock down its shields.

* * *

Fighter Captain Zoran staggered under the impact, quickly righting himself up and sitting down in a chair nearby. He impatiently turned towards the other aliens that were monitoring the ship status.

"Status report!"

"Shields at 90 and falling, Captain," one of the 'techs said. "Two of the units we are encountering, Rampage and Crossfire, pack a lotta punch."

Zoran sighed. "Guess we'll just have to work harder then. Power up the particle cannons, and this time-"

"Captain, sorry to interrupt, but incoming transmission from Captain Tarad," a 'tech said.

"Patch him into the main screen," Zoran snapped back, annoyed that he had been interrupted.

The main screen in front of Zoran flickered to life, with Tarad's visage filling the once blank screen.

"What are you doing!?" Tarad yelled, obviously perturbed at something.

"Um....destroying the intruders, just like you commanded, sir," Zoran replied, confused.

"No, you idiot!" Tarad screamed, enraged. "I said to CRIPPLE the Transformers, not destroy them!"

"Um.... isn't that the same thing, sir?"

"No! We just want to hamper their ability to make combat, so we can take them aboard! Now, FOLLOW MY ORDERS!"

Before Zoran could respond, the screen went blank. Zoran muttered a curse word in his native language and then ordered his crew to carry out their new orders.

"Amusing...they seemed to have powered down their main weapon for some reason," Rampage mused, just as Dinobot got his right arm blown off by another small particle beam eminating from the ship above.

"And...." Dinobot painfully replied, "it...seems to make their targeting...more...accurate."

"No doubt because of the lessened recoil of the weapon," Rampage said, urging the three to attack the ship with another salvo of missles and lasers again.

Their shots rocked the fighters' shields once again, but didn't seem to do any serious damage. The fighter replied with a few more particle blasts, all aimed at Dinobot. The Transmetal 2 couldn't dodge in time, and was knocked into stasis lock.

"Slag!" Crossfire cursed, firing a few more fireballs at the ship while doing so, "they haven't even gotten dented yet and we're already down to t-"

Crossfire's sentence was interrupted by a few well-placed particle blasts, knocking her into stasis lock as well.

Rampage's sixth sense told him to run, so he did. He barely missed a few particle blasts that would have taken him down a few feet away. Rampage turned back to see the rock outcropping crumble on top of Crossfire and Dinobot. Just as Rampage was about to turn around and fire again, he felt a few bursts of immense pain hit his back. As he fell to the ground, he felt a light green ray wash over him right before he entered stasis lock.

* * *

Beastbot was awakened from his nap by a faint "swoosh" that sounded like an airplane about to crash. It slowly got louder, until Ramulus woke up as well.

"Hey, Ram, what was that?!"

"I don't know, maybe it was a-"

Before Ramulus could finish his sentence, a huge explosion rocked the rocky cave in which they had made their home, blowing Beastbot and Ramulus out the entrance and into the clearing outside. They landed on their skidplates just in time to see their home burst into flames, and the hill collapse in on itself.

"Uh...I'm guessing that was a bomb," Beastbot said, still staring at what used to be his home just ten seconds ago.

Ramulus tapped Beastbot on the shoulder, waking the velociraptor/cougar fuzor from his trance.

"I don't think that's the most of our worries, buddy. Look straight up."

Beastbot did as he was told. What he saw made him forget he had a home in the first place.

A large fighter-ship was hovering about a hundred meters or so above them. Beastbot watched as a big hatch opened up on the bottom and a few small, black objects falling from it.

"What the..?" Beastbot stammered.

"Act now, ask later. RUN!" Ramulus shouted, and the duo quickly dodged a bomb that disintegrated anything left of their home. They quickly dove behind a large rock nearby, narrowly missing another bomb.

"Hoverboard, ACTIVATE!" Ramulus yelled, throwing up his large pulse gun. The hoverboard obediently transformed its large ram horns into airplane-shaped wings in midair, and hovered a few feet above the ground.

Ramulus jumped on, but motioned for Beastbot to stop just as the fuzor was about to grab on to the wings also.

"No, Beastbot, this board can't carry the two of us. You distract them down here, while I surf on up there and figure out what the slag's going on."

Before Beastbot could reply, the Transmetal 2 ram hovered off, leaving Beastbot behind to dodge the bombs.

"How come I'm always the one to distract, while you get to do the cool stuff?" Beastbot muttered, but complied reluctantly. He transformed to beast mode, and ran out from behind the rock, running as fast as his four cougar legs could carry him.

"Hey, you...you...whatever you are!" Beastbot yelled at the ship, "Eat this!" Beastbot fired a few laser disks at the fighter hovering above him, hoping to get lucky and hit something vital. He didn't. The disks exploded about fifty feet from the ship's exterior, indicating some kind of shields.

Ramulus, who was about seventy feet away from the ship at the time and approaching the open hatch fast, noticed this.

"Oh, slag," Ramulus muttered, right before he and his hoverboard slammed into the shield. His hoverboard exploded, charring Ramulus and severely electrocuting him as well. He fell in stasis lock toward the ground below.

Beastbot avoided shots while looking up at the falling form of Ramulus at the same time, trying to run right below where the Transmetal 2 ram was going to land.

"I gotcha, I gotcha....I gotcha!" Beastbot yelled triumphantly as Ramulus fell, literally, in Beastbot's arms. Beastbot took Ramulus' limp form behind a rock and lay it there. Just as he was about to stand back up from laying Ramulus down, a stray explosive hit the rock, causing it to explode. Beastbot got caught in the blast and was thrown hundreds of feet into the air, landing on the ground a long ways away from the rock he had been at just a second before.

"Sl..slag..." was all Beastbot could say before slipping into stasis lock.

* * *

Megatron nearly fell out of his command chair as another blast rocked the Predacon base.

"Blast! Scavenger, status report!"

"Royalty, shields at 20 and dropping!" Scavenger replied from a nearby control panel, fear evident in his eyes.

Megatron shook his head sadly.

"Just as I had feared. All Transmetal--Predacons, vehicle mode! All non-Transmetals, beast mode!" Megatron yelled quickly, interrupted by another jolt from an explosion. All the Predacons obeyed, confused.

"Royalty, what are we doing?!" Scavenger asked, yelling over the noise of crashing computers and wall panels.

"We're abandoning the base temporarily," Megatron said while transforming into his crocodile mode. "Those aliens want us, not this base. We all need to go as quickly as we can toward the Maximal headquarters. Although I wouldn't normally form an alliance with them, desperate times call for desperate measures."

All the Predacons obeyed reluctantly, and within minutes were all outside the base and heading towards the Ark, dodging blasts from the large fighter all the while.

* * *

Another small particle blast from the fighter hovering about a hundred meters above finally took down Claw Jaw, who immediately went into stasis lock.

"CJ! No!" Cybershark yelled, then began unloading missles into the fighter's shields all the more quicker, out of anger.

"Calm down, kid," Depth Charge said, while shooting some ion disks at the shields as well. "He's just in stasis lock. We'll get him bac-"

Depth Charge was knocked into stasis lock as well by another particle blast. He had been hit almost ten times already. He had been such a big target, it was hard for the ship to miss.

Depth Charge and his companions, Cybershark and Claw Jaw, had been lucky, being out on their small island a few miles off the coastline, and had spotted the fighter heading toward them soon after it had entered the atmosphere. They had opened fire on it as soon as it had come in range of their weapons, and had weathered down the fighters' shields a lot. In the end, though, it got quite a bit of an advantage over them with all its weapons, and, even though its shields were extremely weak now, it had managed to take out two of the trio.

"You...stupid....ALIENS!!!" Cybershark screamed while charging up his claw-arm in anger. A ball of electricity appeared shortly after in his claw-arm, and quickly grew until it took up all the space in between the four claws. He pointed it at the ship, and fired it full-force, the ball elongating as it was shot.

The ball slammed into the ship's shields, but this time with an effect that pleased Cybershark. The shield flickered, then disappeared. The shot had been one too many, and the shields were down! Cybershark wasn't about to pass up this opportunity.

"Grappling hook, deploy!" Cybershark yelled, and the claw part of his left arm shot out toward the ship, a thin rope connecting it to the rest of Cybershark as it punched into the hull of ship and stuck there, its metal spikes keeping it from sliding out.

"Grappling hook, recoil!" Cybershark said, and the rope quickly pulled him up toward the ship as the rope was pulled back into his arm. Within moments, he was clinging on to the side of the hovering ship, his claw-arm wrenched into the hull.

Cybershark took one of the shark fins from his back and gripped it in his right hand, and, using it as a knife, stuck it in the side of the ship. Now he was hanging by his hands to the side of the ship nearly two hundred feet above the ground. He took his claw-arm out of the side of the ship and lifted it up as far as he could, then he punched it into the side of the ship again. Cybershark did the same with the knife in his other arm, repeating this over and over again. Eventually he reached a little hatch on the side of the ship about twelve meters up from where he originally latched on.

Bracing himself, he quickly opened up the hatch with a well-placed blast from his missle launcher and jumped in.

He saw a long, metallic hallway stretched out in front of him, with a couple of black forms with four arms and two legs walking around in it.

"By Primus..." was all Cybershark said.

The aliens took one look at him and yelled something in their language. A few more aliens ran into the hallway, obviously alerted to Cybershark's presence. Before Cybershark could react, the aliens morphed into various forms that he couldn't identify, all of them with sharp edges. They lunged at Cybershark, who fired a few missles at them, but to no effect- the missles went right through their gooey bodies.

Cybershark just had time to see the aliens tackle him before his vision went black.

* * *

"Eh, Boss Monkey! Incoming Preds!" Rattrap yelled across the clearing in front of the Ark, dodging a few blasts from the fighter hovering a few hundred meters above the Maximals. Cheetor, Optimus, Blackarachnia, Silverbolt, and Airazor were also having trouble dodging the blasts from the ship while shooting at the ship themselves.

"Oh, great! Just what we need now!" Cheetor yelled sarcastically as all the Predacons came into view, quickly flying, driving, walking, or crawling towards them.

"No, they aren't attacking us, Cheetor," Optimus replied. "I think they want to talk to us."

"Preds? Talk? Fearless leader, your wires get crossed or somethin'?" Rattrap replied.

"Do not fire, Optimus Primal!" came Megatron's voice over the loud bangs and crashes of the battle, "I come merely to talk!"

Optimus smirked knowingly at Rattrap.

"'Ey, he still might be lyin'," Rattrap shot back.

Before Optimus could answer, Megatron and his crew came onto the scene, each of them transforming as they entered the battlefield.

"Primal, I propose a truce...for now!" Megatron said, while dodging a few blasts from the fighter above.

"Yeah, right, like the last one we had?" Optimus remarked.

"No, I mean a REAL truce! Predacons helping Maximals, Maximals helping Predacons! What do you say, Primal?"

Optimus thought for a moment, then nodded.

"WHAT!?" Rattrap screamed, seeing the small nod Optimus gave to Megatron. "You can't be serious!"

"I am serious, Rattrap," Optimus replied. "Besides, what've we got to lose?"

"Our lives," Rattrap muttered to himself, but Optimus didn't catch it.

"Predacons, open fire on the ship, and help the Maximals in any way possible!" Megatron remarked, following his own orders.

* * *

"Fighter Captain Racklor, the two factions of Transformers have apparently joined forces against our fighter!" a nearby Vexoran tech yelled to his captain.

"Hmmm....I did not expect this...how are the shields doing, Tech?"

The tech checked the readouts for a while, then answered, panic evident in his voice. "Umm....shields at 15 and falling fast, Captain! We've knocked out their units named Rattrap and Waspinator, but they've definitely got the Prometheus, tell him to act now."

"Can't sir, the link's busted!"

Racklor frowned at this. "Can you at least send a tight-frequency beam to the Arachis?"

"Um....yes! Sir, it's up and ready!"

"Good. Tell them this message: Emergency call from Fighter Captain Racklor. Our coordinates are 589-32, 89-1. We need help on fending off these Transformers, who seem to have joined together for the time being....."

* * *

"Yeah! Broke through their shields, Bigbot!" Cheetor yelled to his leader over the roaring sound of all of the guns being fired.

"Good! Now, all Maximals and Predacons, converge on the engines! Let's try to knock their means of transportation out!" Optimus ordered.

"We've got them now!" Terrorsaur yelled, launching a few more plasma balls from his hands at the fighter.

A battered Scavenger looked up and gulped. "Royalty...I think you should look at the back end of the ship..."

Megatron looked up as well, and gasped.

Hundreds of black forms were drifting down from the fighter. He was just about to study them further, when-

"Heads up, heroes!" Cheetor yelled. "There's another vessel coming in!"

Megatron turned around, and, sure enough, the same fighter that had been attacking them at the Pred base was converging on their position.

"Don't concentrate on that ship yet!" Megatron commanded. "Keep firing at the same one you have been! Let's get this one vessel taken out before they both start firing at us!"

Just as Megatron turned around, he saw a large black form land on the ground right next to him, and then- blackness.

* * *

That's sick! Cheetor thought as he watched what was happening to Megatron. The black forms that had been falling out of the ship had been the aliens themselves. One of them had landed near Megatron, seemingly not hurt by the impact. Before Megatron could react, the alien had turned itself into a puddle of black liquid, and was now oozing itself between Megatron's joints, into Megatron's internal structure. Megatron jerked as this was happening, but otherwise made no attempt to move. Within seconds, there was no sign that the alien had ever been there. Megatron suddenly turned around sharply, and, raising his tail cannon, shot Quickstrike in the back, taking the fuzor down.

_That alien's taken over ol' Megs' body!_

A few cheerful whoops came from Optimus and a few others. At first, Cheetor thought it was the aliens infesting them, but it turned out that they had downed the first ship! The ship had caught on fire, and was now slowly advancing towards the mountain tops about a mile off, descending and leaving a trail of smoke behind as it did so.

However, those yells quickly turned into screams as more of the aliens landed and infested Terrorsaur, Buzzclaw, Blackarachnia, and Scavenger. Now with four Transformers on their side, the aliens were defintely gaining ground. They slowly pushed the Transformers back into a small corner of the canyon, infesting Optimus and Silverbolt in the process. Now, only Airazor, Tarantulas, Prometheus, and Cheetor were left.

"Oh, man! We're toast!" Cheetor said fearfully as the infested Transformers slowly made their way toward the ones cowering in the canyon. Even firepower from all of the remaining four Transformers had not stopped them one bit!

Cheetor heard Airazor gurgle and looked around, and didn't believe what he saw- Prometheus had his arms grasped around Airazor's throat, and was squeezing like there was no tomorrow!

"Prometheus, what are you doing!?" Cheetor screamed. Prometheus didn't answer, but instead punched Cheetor in the face, hard. Cheetor saw everything start to swirl around him before he went into stasis lock.


	3. Chap 3: The Abduction

Alien Saga, Chapter 3: The Abduction  
by Beastbot

Cheetor awoke to find himself strapped to an examination cart, in robot mode. For a split second, he thought he was in the stadium Airazor described earlier, but he quickly found out he was wrong as he noticed that the cart was rolling. As his other senses came online, he noticed that he was indeed inside a long, metal hallway- presumably in either one of the alien fighters, or the humongous alien ship that was orbiting Earth. Which one, Cheetor did not care at the moment. All he wanted to do was get out of here. Stretching his neck up as far as the strap around it would let him, he took in more of his surroundings. One of the black aliens was pushing his cart down the hallway, and several others were lined up behind and in front of him, pushing more identical carts with the other Maximals and Predacons on them, all still in stasis lock. The alien who was pushing his cart noticed him, but did not react in any way.

Then, as his last system came online, Cheetor felt a new feeling overwhelm him.

Pain.

Pain from the hard punch in the face Prometheus had given him just before the cat-bot blacked out. Pain from seeing all the other Maximals, especially Optimus, taken from the Ark against their will. Pain from the harm that had been done to all of the Maximals. No, now it was not pain- it was anger. He was angry at these aliens for all they had done to the Beast Warriors over the three years they had been stuck on Earth. They had destroyed Tigatron, tortured Airazor, and done numerous other things to the Predacons. Before, Cheetor had thought that the Predacons were his enemies. Now he knew he was wrong. The aliens were far more merciless and evil than the Preds ever were.

Cheetor felt the anger build up inside him until he could not hold it in any longer. He screamed as loud as he could, no recognizable words coming from his mouth as he did, just screaming to get the anger out of his system. The aliens that were pushing the carts down the hallway paused for a moment and stared at him questioningly, but then continued on with their duties, obviously assuming this was just something Transformers did once and a while.

After about ten seconds of screaming as loud as he could, Cheetor's voice grew hoarse, and he stopped. Now that the anger was out of his system, he would need his wits if he were ever to get out of here. He looked around again, counting the Maximals and Predacons to make sure they were all there.

Bigbot, Rattrap, Megs, Waspinator, Quickstrike....wait a minute, where's Prometheus? Or Tarantulas, for that matter? I bet Prometheus is one of THEM, considering the way he acted, but maybe Tarantulas....maybe Tarantulas escaped! Oh, Primus! Maybe he'll help us after all! Maybe he'll....

Cheetor shook that thought out of his head immediately. Counting on Tarantulas to get them out of trouble? Yeah, right. Where was that spider, anyway?

* * *

Tarad looked on in amusement as two of his fellow aliens, Prometheus and Nighteye, brought Tarantulas into his room, the Predacon struggling unsuccessfully to escape their grasp all the while. Finally, the spider-bot gave up, and stopped trying to escape as Prometheus and Nighteye wordlessly closed the entrance behind them and left Tarantulas in the room, with the three other Vexorans watching his every move.

Tarad liked his two sub-commanders, because both Prometheus and Nighteye were both strong, smart, and competent. While Prometheus was better at spying and acting, such as he had done when he morphed into species number 5893/192.2 and joined the Beast Wars, Nighteye was better at outright hunting and killing, as he was more silent and deadly.

Taran dismissed those thoughts out of his head as he spoke to Tarantulas in English- a language he hadn't used for almost a year, now.

"You are the one they call Tarantulas, correct?"

Tarantulas looked nervous, but it was apparent he was trying to hide it. "Y-yes, I am. Who are you, alien?"

Tarad chuckled, as did Nighteye and Prometheus, who was still inside his "Rhinox suit". "Don't play dumb, Tarantulas. You know who I am, I know who you are. Let's just get down to business, shall we?"

"I-I don't..know what you're talking about, alien," Tarantulas replied, looking around the room nervously as he did.

Tarad sighed. "You're just making this hard on yourself, Tarantulas. Prometheus, Nighteye, you may proceed."

The two other aliens nodded, and proceeded to rip Tarantulas' arms away instantly. However, instead of wires, sparks, and circuits fizzing out as the arms seperated from the Predacon's body, the arms cleanly came off, leaving behind...nothing.

"NOOOO! What have you done!?" Tarantulas yelled.

"Oh, shut up, Taran!" Tarad snapped back in Vexoran tongue, tired of the games this spider was playing. "We all know who you really are, so just come clean!"

Tarantulas reluctantly obeyed, and black goo oozed out of his arm holes, forming four black arms- arms that looked remarkably like the Vexorans' upper appendages.

"Now that you've found out, what are you going to do about it, brother?" Tarantulas asked, both in fear and defiance.

"Nothing- for now, anyway," Tarad replied. "I just want to ask you a few questions, that's all. Now, for one- why did you betray us?"

"Because this race is going to the Pit!" Taran snapped back. "All you do is build your race's self-esteem up, playing 'almighty peacekeeper', thinking you rule all space and time, when you don't realize the full potential of our superior technology! We could conquer all other races, and rule the galaxy! But instead, all you want to do with our technology is 'run experiments' and 'test subjects'. What waste of intellect!"

Tarad looked visibly angry, but calmed down quickly, relaxing in his soft chair. "But why become one of these...Cybertronians? These robots, all they do is wage war against one another! Just meaningless, endless battles, with 'down times' just meaning time to reload weapons! Why join them, Taran?"

"Because, Tarad, they are seeing the full potential of their technology and exploiting it any way possible, especially the Predacons! If they keep up with their rate of technology gain and our race keeps up with theirs, they will surpass us in technology in less than two thousand years! THEN who will be the conquerors of the galaxy, we 'peaceful' folk, or the mighty Predacons?!"

"Your time with these Transformers has warped your mind," Tarad replied sadly. "Especially some of your...odd behaviors we have noticed, such as your unsuccessful relationship with Blackarachnia we had noticed about two years earlier? What was that all about, hmm?"

"If one must play the part, one must play the part well," Taran snapped back.

"Enough," Tarad commanded. "It is obvious that you think your actions are justified no matter what we say to you. I had hoped to end this peacefully, brother, but it is becoming evident that it is not to be that way. Prometheus and Nighteye will guide you to your cell-"

"CELL!?" Taran interrupted angrily. "I AM TO BE TREATED LIKE A CRIMINAL BECAUSE I BELIEVE OUR RACE IS NOT USING THEIR FULL POTENTIAL!?"

"No, you are being treated like a criminal because you have committed crimes against your people by helping a war-oriented race to grow unchecked," Tarad replied angrily. "And don't yell at me, BROTHER, or I will see to it that you will have the worst possible punishment set for you when we get back to Vexora. Prometheus, Nighteye, take him away."

The two Vexoran bodyguards took Taran away wordlessly, the former Predacon kicking and screaming all the way to his cell.

* * *

Rattrap sighed and leaned against one of the walls of the room that the aliens had wordlessly shoved him into almost two hours ago. Apparently, all the Maximals and Predacons had been taken aboard the main alien ship that was orbiting Earth. They had been repaired by a device Rattrap couldn't describe with mere words, and then they were forced to go into three seperate, large rooms. These rooms were barren, and had cold metal floors, walls, and ceilings. Megatron, Optimus, Scavenger, Rampage, Crossfire, and Cheetor were taken into a room a couple doors down. Waspinator, Silverbolt, Ramulus, Beastbot, Dinobot, Quickstrike, and himself were in this room. Airazor, Terrorsaur, Depth Charge, Cybershark, Claw Jaw, and Blackarachnia were in a room next to theirs. Their rooms were all connected to a long, metallic corridor that stretched as far as the eye could see. The killer was, however, that the doors that led to freedom were transparent- if you could call them doors. They were actually a kind of force field that kept Transformers out, but could let any of the aliens come in and out as they pleased. Currently two of the aliens were standing right outside their door, guarding them if anything would go wrong.

Fat chance of that, Rattrap thought. Who knew what kind of technology these aliens had. Practically no escape plan out of this prison would work, he was sure of it. So, until the aliens wanted to do something with them, they were stuck- in this barren, metal room, with nothing to do at all. Seeing that Beastbot and Ramulus were sharing this room with him, that made it all the worse. There were two 'bots, sitting not more than ten feet away from him, that had assassinated his leader- and they were playing cards they had taken from their subspace as if they had done nothing wrong. Rattrap would have shot them dead the minute they all were shoved into this room, if it was not discovered that if anyone attacked each other, they were given a powerful electrical shock. From what, the Transformers didn't know. So, he was stuck sitting next to two cold-blooded killers for who knew how long. Primus, what irony life was.

Rattrap sighed and pulled a small chess set out of his subspace pocket. He wasn't exactly a chess maniac, but he liked to play a game against someone now and then. However, he had nothing in common with anyone in this room, so he set up the pieces to play against- who else?- himself.

Just as Rattrap was about to make his first move against himself, he heard the familiar sound of buzzing coming from his left. He turned around, and, sure enough, there was Waspinator.

"Wazzpinator wantz to know what rat-bot is playing."

"Go away, bug-face, before I scrap you," Rattrap snapped back, narrowing his eyes. He wasn't exactly in the mood to talk with a stupid Pred.

"But...Wazzpinator wantz to play game!"

Rattrap sighed. Playing chess against a Pred is at least better than playing chess with yourself. "All right, I'm playing chess. You can play if you wanna."

Waspinator looked like he was about to hug Rattrap, but he decided against it. "Thankz, Rat-bot! Wazzpinator will never forget thiz!"

"Okay, okay, it's no big deal," Rattrap said. "I'll be white, you be black."

"That okay," Waspinator replied, taking a seat on the other side of the chess board.

As soon as Rattrap could see that Waspinator was situated, he made his first move, moving one of his pawns two spaces ahead.

"Okay, your turn, Waspinator."

Waspinator stared at the board for more than half a minute before finally saying something.

"Rat-bot?"

"Yeah?"

"How do you play chezz?"

Rattrap sighed. This was gonna be a loooooong day...

* * *

When Prometheus and Nighteye threw Taran into the cell and locked the bolted door, the former Predacon could make out four other figures in the cell....but they weren't Vexoran. Taran couldn't tell what they were, on account of the lack of light.

"Me Grimlock have new visitor!" one of the figures said.

"It isn't just yours, Grimlock, we're here too," another one said, this time in a deeper voice.

The third figure sighed. "It doesn't matter!" the figure yelled, obviously perturbed at the two.

"Calm down, everyone," the fourth figure replied. "I know we're all a little on the edge after being in here so long, but that doesn't mean we have to show it."

Grimlock.....Taran ran the name through his head, and although it sounded familiar, he couldn't quite place it...

"Who are you?" Taran asked.

"We'll tell you, after you tell us who you are," the third figure replied. "Can't be giving our names away to people we don't know, now, can we?"

Taran sighed. This was obviously going to be a fun trip back to Vexora.... "My name is Taran, brother of Tarad, although I am not mindlessly loyal to my race as he is. I was captured after helping Transformers fend off these Vexorans, and I am going to be taken back to Vexora for punishment. There, now will you tell me who you are?" Taran said impatiently. He wanted to find out why the name Grimlock sounded so familiar.

"Me Grimlock, mightiest of Dinobots," the first figure said.

"Ah'm Ironhide, Autobot warrior," the second figure replied.

"I am Prowl, Autobot scientist and technician," the third answered.

"And I am Sigma Prime," the fourth said.

Taran ran those names through his head. Yes, he remembered the first three names... they were all important Autobots that played an important part in the Third Cybertronian War. He had read about them in some book or another. But....why were they here? As advanced as his race was, they couldn't bring back the dead. This made no sense at all....

Also, there was the problem of the fourth name, Sigma Prime. Although the "Prime" designation was only given to the greatest of Cybertron's leaders, he did not remember ever hearing about anyone named Sigma Prime.

"Infrared vision," Taran commanded quietly, and a small cover slid down over his eye. He looked at the four figures. These weren't who they said they were! He knew the appearance of Grimlock, Ironhide, and Prowl, and the infrared vision made it obvious that their appearance was otherwise. While Grimlock was still a dinosaur, his heat signature was that of a velociraptor's. Ironhide's was that of an elephant's, and Prowl's was that of a lion's. Sigma Prime wasn't in beast mode like the other three, but in robot mode, and his looked remarkably like that of.....no, that couldn't be right. Taran shut down his infrared vision. When Prometheus and Nighteye had ripped off his robotic arms, that must have made his infrared system malfunction or something.

"You're lying," Taran said simply. "Your beast modes aren't the same as the ones I've heard of."

The second figure shook his head.

"Let me explain, Taran," he said. "It all started when..."

Tarad heard a loud knock on the door.

"Come in."

The door opened to reveal none other than Prometheus, the Vexoran who had been a spy for their race in the Beast Wars.

"Ah, Prometheus," Tarad said. "I must commend you for your excellent job down there on Earth. The acting was worth that of an Earthling Emmy Award."

Prometheus bowed slightly.

"Thank you, Tarad. However, that is not the reason I came in here. I wanted to request permission to get out of this Transformer 'suit' and back into my original form."

Tarad nodded. "You may do so, Prometheus. You have kept Rhinox's spark fully functional, correct?"

"Correct," Prometheus affirmed. Then, under obvious strain, Prometheus broke free of his Rhinox "shell", scattering pieces of it around him as it broke apart.

The alien under Rhinox's former body, however, was not what a normal Vexoran looked like.

It was a copy of species 5893/192.2 after it had infested its host. It was a mass of interlocking, pink organic tentacles in the vague form of a humanoid. An unprotected heart-like structure in the chest area was busy pumping "blood" throughout all the slimy tentacles, and a small mass that was similar to a brain was in the chest area as well. It was a sickening sight to humans. However, since Vexorans do not look at everything the way we do, Tarad did not find it repulsive.

Some of the tentacles in the chest area parted, and a globe-sized flesh sac was revealed, a faint light source coming from within. Prometheus took it and handed it to Tarad.

"It is Unit Rhinox's spark," he explained. "I- or rather, the creature I morphed into- generated a small flesh sac around Unit Rhinox's spark, protecting it from being destroyed after I infested it. The sac also kept any scanners from detecting Unit Rhinox's energy signature, so as to make the Maximals assume he was dead."

"Excellent job, Prometheus," Tarad commented as Prometheus morphed back to his original Vexoran form. "I will see that High Officer Grakkon commends you for this. If you have no further questions or comments, you may leave. Due to your rewarding efforts, you may have the rest of the week off duty."

"Thank you," replied Prometheus, bowing. Without another word being spoken, Prometheus exited the room, relieved to be off duty for the first time in two months.

With Prometheus gone, Tarad reverted his attention back to the flesh sac that contained Rhinox's spark.

"Your knowledge of your race's technology is vast, Rhinox," Tarad said to the spark, as if it could comprehend what he was saying. "It will help us deal with your kind- just as soon as we can crack these secrets from your data tracks. And we will, Rhinox. We will."

* * *

Scourge, Scarem, and Nighteye were all casually talking to each other while walking down a corridor to their quarters. They had all just been relieved off of duty for the time being, and it was relieving to talk among comrades, forgetting worries for the moment.

"Tarad sure was in a good mood today," Nighteye commented, "What's he so excited about?"

"Is there a neural network anywhere in that body of yours, Nighteye?" Scourge snapped back. "He's excited because he's captured those stupid Transformer pests that have ruined the Project."

"What's so good about the Project, anyway?" Scarem asked. "It's just another dumb planet we're trying to create sentient life on so we can study it. Yippie, more work for our race to do. Whatever happened to fun?"

"We grew up, Brother," Scourge answered. "Father practically forced us into the military, and now it's just work, analyze this, contemplate that. And, this knucklehead of a captain, Tarad, is really starting to get on my nerves. He's always so strict and by-the-book."

"Yeah," Scarem agreed. "I don't like this military business any more. When we get back to Vexora, I don't care what Father says, I'm quitting."

Nighteye looked shocked. "But- you can't quit! You guys need to respect your Father's wishes, no matter what! Besides, Tarad's kinda nice, once you get to know him."

"Yeah, because you're his lackey," Scourge snapped back. He had never really liked Nighteye; he had only been Nighteye's "friend" because his Brother was. Lately, because their interests had been conflicting more and more, he was beginning to regret making this friendship. "All you do is serve 'Almighty Tarad' day after day. Well, let me tell you something, Mr. I-Live-To-Serve, wouldn't you be happier actually leading something? I mean, these stupid decisions that Tarad's making, such as capturing the Transformers, but not killing them, wouldn't you want to do it a different way?"

"Well, yeah," Nighteye agreed. "But-"

"But nothing," Scourge interrupted. "I'm going to kill these Transformers, no matter what he says- one way or another."


	4. Chap 4: The First Memories

Alien Saga, Chapter 4: The First Memories  
by Beastbot

"No! You can't do this, Scourge! It's not ri-mff, mffmffmfffff!"

Nighteye was interrupted by Scarem covering her mouth with his hand.

"On the contrary, Nighteye, it IS right," Scourge retorted, shoving Nighteye into one of the Vexoran ship's escape pods. Scourge, Nighteye, and Scarem were in the escape pod bay. No other Vexorans were in here at the time, as it was 'nighttime' to their race and there were a minimal number of guards around the ship. "For, if you told on our little scheme to destroy the Transformers, like you said you would, then our plan would be ruined, now wouldn't it? I'm sorry, Nighteye, really I am, but if you can't keep your mouth shut, then you must pay the consequences."

"N-no! I w-won't tell! I promise!" Nighteye said, panic evident in his voice.

Scourge chuckled. "Oh, quit that, Nighteye. We all know how much of a goody-goody you are when it comes to your relationship with Tarad. Computer, lock AB escape pod hatch. Voice code #-gdc."

The pod bay's computer complied, and the door to the pod clamped down with a hiss, separating Nighteye from Scarem and Scourge.

"Why are you doing this?" Nighteye asked incredulously, his voice now muffled because of the barrier.

"Because these Transformers need to be eradicated- at any cost. They must be wiped from the hourglass of time, before they crack it. Scarem, press the launch button. It's on the control panel to your right- the green button."

"Are you sure we should be doing this, Brother?" Scarem asked hesitantly.

"Of course! It's for the good of the universe! Unless we eradicate these Transformers, they will continue to disrupt the time flow! And, the only way we can be sure our plan to destroy them will work is if Nighteye is not allowed to tell Captain Tarad about it! NOW, LAUNCH!"

Scarem hesitated for another second, then pushed the launch button reluctantly. With a loud "whoosh," the spherical escape pod was launched from the mother ship, moving toward Earth at an incredible speed. Within a minute, the pod entered Earth's atmosphere and began to burn up on entry- along with Nighteye.

Just as Scarem and Scourge were about to leave, however, they heard footsteps coming from a nearby hallway, heading toward the pod bay. Scarem tugged at Scourge's shoulder hurriedly.

"Come on, brother! We must leave now, we shouldn't be here!"

Scourge yanked his shoulder away from Scarem, narrowing his eyes at his younger brother.

"No. It will not do us any good if whoever is coming here hears footsteps running away from him. We must stay here, so as not to arouse any suspicion."

Scarem didn't know how they could not arouse suspicion by staying here, but he stood his ground anyway. After a few more seconds, the Vexoran turned out to be none other than their father, Prometheus.

"Scarem, Scourge, what are you doing in the pod bay? I have been looking all around the ship for you two."

"We were merely...admiring the view," Scourge said. It was a legitimate excuse. The pod bay had windows almost all around it, with the exceptions of the escape pod hatches and the entrance.

"Why were you not up in the observation deck, then?"

"It was crowded, Father. You know I do not get along with many Vexorans very well."

Prometheus shrugged. "Very well. I am sorry to interrupt you two, but Tarad needs you to round up the Transformers and take them to the main lab. We are ready to run some tests on some of them."

"Very well, Father."

* * *

Prometheus entered the examination room two hours later, and found that all the Transformers, with the exceptions of the experiments -Grimlock, Prowl, Sigma Prime, and Ironhide- had already been strapped to their examination tables in robot mode, and drugged with a substance that made them go into stasis lock, but without sustaining any damage.

_I see Scourge and Scarem did their job well. Something didn't seem right in the pod bay earlier, though- I will have to check that out later._

Prometheus walked over to the couple of Vexoran scientists that were busy hooking up several of the unconscious Beast Warriors to several machines.

"What will we be doing with them while testing the technology?" Prometheus asked.

"Unit Cheetor has been chosen as the test subject for our new Ultrametal technology. We will be monitoring Unit Waspinator as we introduce him to the Transmetal technology, and we will be testing the Transmetal 2 exo-suits on Units Megatron and Optimus Primal. Other experiment subjects have yet to be decided upon," one of the scientists answered.

"But what will they be doing while these experiments are being conducted? We already know, by the tests with Units Airazor and Terrorsaur, that if they are not doing something else with their mind while the experiments are being run, it results in temporary loss of movement."

"We have entered them each into their past. This way, they will not be having any random dreams or nightmares that will wake them up from their sleep."

"Interesting," Prometheus noted, as he stared at the decapitated head of Scorponok, connected to several wires. "Carry on."

* * *

Depth Charge leaned his forehead against his hand as he slumped into his chair. Primus, these High Council meetings were boring. He just wanted to get back to Omicron- he was anxious to see how the Protoform X project was going.

"Depth Charge?"

The large Maximal was interrupted from his thoughts by a voice calling him- a voice that sounded remarkably like-

"Depth Charge?"

- one of the High Council members. Oh, slag. They wanted his input, and he hadn't even been listening to the conversation!

"What do you think on this subject? Depth Charge? Any ideas?"

Depth Charge righted himself, acting as if he had been paying attention.

"Um....no."

The High Council member stared at him oddly for a moment, then continued on talking to the other members about the subject. Depth Charge felt a sharp nudge in his stomach.

"Oooo, in trouble for not listening again, eh, DC?"

"Shut up, Cybersub."

Cybersub snickered for another moment in his seat next to Depth Charge's, then quieted down.

* * *

Later, after the meeting was over, Depth Charge walked out of the High Council chamber into the streets of Cybertron, along with his two friends and soldiers, Claw Clash and Cybersub.

Depth Charge looked almost exactly like he would when he would crash-land on Earth about five years into the future- or rather, two million years in the past- but his manta ray tail on his back and his manta ray eyes on his chest weren't part of him. He still had his "fins" on his back, however, but they, as well as him, weren't transmetallized, and they looked more like a Cybertronian Starhopper's wings instead of fins.

Cybersub and Claw Clash, however, looked almost entirely different. Although Cybersub's, who would later become Cybershark's, face was almost the same, he didn't have that enormous fin sticking out of his head. His shoulder pads were more rounded, and any Transmetal 2 qualities that he had when he became Cybershark weren't a part of him now. His large claw-arm wasn't a part of him yet, so he had two normal arms. Claw Clash, in the future Claw Jaw, barely had any resemblance to his future body- even his color scheme was different, being mostly black and white. He had a more bulky look to him, and instead of tentacles, he had metallic plates on his shoulders. His face looked about the same, but he had a mouth at this point in time.

"Some meeting, huh, DC?" Cybersub asked his commander.

"Yeah," Depth Charge answered. "Another stupid council meeting about how to further our peace relations with the Predacons. Those Preds are just restockin' their troops, this isn't real peace. The High Council is too stupid to see that, however."

"Um, Commander," Claw Clash asked, "Shouldn't we be getting back to Omicron? I mean, you are security chief there."

"I don't know," Depth Charge yawned. "I'm kinda tired- ready to hit the sack. Let's find a place to rest for the night, then we'll fly home tomorrow and see how this new Protoform X project is going."

"Finally, you said something I agree with," Cybersub mused, and the trio continued down the streets of Cybertron, trying to find a hotel or inn to spend the night in.

* * *

A Maximal scientist scrambled out of the emergency exit, shutting the door behind him. He was badly beaten up, and mech fluid was dripping off his body. He ran out into one of the main streets nearby, as fast as his injured legs could carry him.

"HELP!!!! PROTOFORM X IS ON THE LOOSE!" he cried, panicking. "RUN!" All the nearby Transformers on the street took one look at him, saw how damaged he was, and took off running themselves, screaming the message to more passerbys farther down the street. The scientist limped a few more feet, then collapsed, of a lack of energy.

A few seconds later, a loud "smash" was heard, and a huge hand ripped open the emergency exit door the scientist has passed through less than a minute ago. A large, muscular robot stepped out into the alley, his face not having a mouth, but rather some rigid tendrils. As Protoform X saw the Maximal scientist, he laughed madly and stomped up to the prone form.

"Hahahahahoooo! Hold me in chains, will you?!"

Protoform X picked up the scientist in one massive hand, and held the Maximal close enough to his face to feel his hot breath rushing over the scientist's face.

"Ah, I smell your fear. It tastes sweet. Let your fear grow, scum. My prey tastes all the more delicious when it is afraid."

The Maximal screamed- and that was the last anyone ever heard of the scientist.

* * *

"Hurry! Unlock the gate, you fool!"

"I'm hurrying, Megatron! But this lock just won't budge!"

"Well, you'd better try harder, Scorponok, or we'll all be executed!"

Scorponok tinkered with the gate lock a bit more with his claw, then the lock fell off, and the gate opened.

"There! Got it!"

"Excellent, yes! Now, where is Dynamo?"

"Right there, Megatron!"

Megatron turned his head and looked back toward the jail they had escaped from, seeing that Dynamo had his hands-or rather, eye lasers- busy with about five guards that had tried to stop the criminal trio.

"Dynamo! Get your skid plate over here! Scorponok has unlocked the gate!" Megatron bellowed.

"Coming, Master!" Dynamo yelled back sarcastically, taking out a few more guards on the way out.

Megatron growled, but followed Scorponok and Dynamo out, adding a few blasts of his own to keep the jail guards at bay. It had not been easy breaking out of this jail, and they weren't about to be arrested again this late into the escapade, no.

* * *

"Are they gone?"

Scorponok peeked out the window, and searched the road outside.

"Yep."

Megatron let out a whoosh of relief. They had lost the guards a little while back, and had hidden in this abandoned building. Now, he could start planning- for stealing the Golden Disk. He had been caught the last time he had tried to steal it, but now he would not be so careless- no.

Scorponok clicked his claws nervously as he transformed to his beast mode. Unlike most of the other future Beast Warriors, Scorponok had always had his scorpion beast mode- however, it looked much more robotic and jagged. In fact, he looked surprisingly like the old Decepticon Scorponok, except he was much smaller.

Dynamo, on the other hand, looked very different before he had gotten his velociraptor beast mode. Although he still had the dominant features on his face, such as the long nose and chin, his body was a different color scheme entirely- mostly green and blue, with a bit of transparent glass on his chest. His vehicle mode, which was what he was in now, was also entirely different as well- it was a mixture of a tank and a missle launcher. While it had the treads and main body of a tank, it had a rotating missle platform instead of a rotating turret on top.

Megatron transformed into his vehicle mode as well as he contemplated what he would do next. He converted into a purple-and-black tank, one of the classic types with a revolving turret.

If life was a cartoon, a light bulb would have lit up over Megatron's head right now. "What we need is more troops if we're going to be successful at this heist this time," Megatron contemplated. "No doubt the elders would have pumped up security at the national archives since we were last there."

"But where will we get any, Megatron?" asked Scorponok, nervous as always.

Megatron smiled devilishly- that is, if he would have if he could of smiled in his tank mode. "I think I know just the place..."

* * *

"Hurry up, Terminator!You want those cops to catch us or not?!" yelled a red-and-silver jet to its partner, a yellow helicopter, lagging slightly behind.

"Terrrminator going as fast as he can! Plane-bot not need to pop energon vessel!"

"It's Terrortron for the last time, you idiot, and you better believe those cops are going to do a lot more than pop our energon vessels if they catch us red-handed with 5,000 stolen credits! Now, keep moving! I think they're gaining on us!"

Terrortron glanced back to see that the Cybertropolis Police were indeed getting closer.

"Pick up speed, NOW!" Terrortron yelled, speeding up and taking as sharp of a left turn as he could manage with a sack of stolen credits dangling from one of his wings. Terminator quickly followed.

After several more twists and turns down some of the narrow alleys of Cybertron, Terminator began to get nervous.

"Um.. Plane-bot?"

"WHAT!?" Terrortron screamed impatiently, turning his head back to glare at Terminator.

"We going to crash sooner or later! Alleys too narrow and turns too sharp for Terrrminator!"

"Don't be ridiculous! I know what I'm do-"

Terrortron's reply was cut short as he crashed into the side of a building. Terminator, not being able to react in time, followed Terrortron's example. Both plummeted to the ground in flames, leaving quite a large hole in the side of the building they had crashed into.

* * *

"Are we there yet?"

"No."

"Are we there yet?"

"No!"

"Are we-"

"SHUT UP, CYBERSUB! Just a few more seconds and we'll be within communications range of Omicron!"

"Aw, geez, DC, I was only kiddin' ya," the flying submarine replied, as he, Depth Charge, and Claw Clash, all in their vehicular modes, sped through space toward the Transformer colony Omicron.

Depth Charge transformed from his Cybertronian Starhopper mode. Claw Clash followed suit, and transformed from his space shuttle mode. Cybersub stayed in his vehicle mode.

"Omicron communications tower, come in, this is Air Commander Depth Charge. We're coming in for a landing in a few clicks, over?" the Maximal commander said through his comlink.

Depth Charge waited.

And waited.

There was no reply.

"Omicron communications tower, this is Depth Charge! Do you copy, over!?" the commander repeated, fear a little evident in his voice.

There was still no response.

"Cybersub, Claw Clash, full speed ahead! Something's happened on Omicron!" Depth Charge said quickly, transforming to vehicle mode again and zooming at full speed toward Omicron. Claw Clash and Cybersub quickly followed suit.

* * *

Cybertronian Police Chief Redblare sighed as she threw the two charred Predacons into their cell and slammed the cell door shut.

"Good work, fellas, you set a new record," Redblare said to the two new jail occupants. "Only three megacycles out of the slammer and you're already back in it. Don't you ever learn?"

"It...wasn't our fault...," the charred heap named Terrortron replied. .... framed us..."

"In the words of the legendary Optimus Prime, 'Yeah, right'. Get some rest, fellas. You're going to need it for your trial in fifteen megacycles."

Redblare slammed the iron door shut behind her, leaving the two injured Predacons in blissful silence.

"No...," was all Depth Charge could whisper as he saw the ruined state the small colony Omicron was in. Fires were rampant, transformer bodies littered the road, and small pieces of buildings were strewn around the streets, most of them charred- evidence of an earlier firefight.

"How?" asked Cybersub in bewilderment, gazing in a fearful awe at all the destruction laid before him. "I mean, this was just a small scientist colony- no real strategic value, so it isn't as though some of the Pred rebels would raid it."

"Guys! Look, over there!" Claw Clash exclaimed, pointing to a flicker of movement a few streets down.

The trio of transformers quickly ran down to the location where Claw Clash had spotted something, but there was nothing there anymore.

"Hmph... maybe it was just a trick of the light-"

Claw Clash was interrupted as a missle hit his back, putting him into stasis lock before he even hit the ground.

"Hahahahahooooo!"

Depth Charge and Cybersub turned to the source of the laugh to find a large, muscular robot standing there, a triple-barrel missle launcher in his hand, one of the holes in it still smoking. He had a large band with an X on it around his right wrist, to help identify him.

"Protoform X," muttered Depth Charge, his voice so cold it could freeze Char.


	5. Chap 5: The Last Memories

Alien Saga, Chapter 5: The Last Memories  
by Beastbot

"Good night, Astroulas. See you in the morning."

"Duh, yeah, boss. Good night."

Astroulas transformed to his vehicle mode- an unidentifiable type of spacecraft- and sped off toward his home.

As he sped through the streets of Cybertropolis to his home, Astroulas had very little to think about in his simple mind. His mind was mostly a blank, the only thought in it about going to bed. All Astroulas ever did was go to work, come home, eat a little energon, and then go to sleep. While most creatures would find this life repetitive and boring, Astroulas was too simple-minded to realize this, and did his work almost as mindlessly as the Beast Warrior Scavenger.

Finally, after about twenty minutes of traveling, Astroulas arrived at his home. That is, if you could call it that. Astroulas made very little money in his line of work, and that which he did make he invested poorly. His "house" was little more than a metal shack in the alley of one of the slum areas of Cybertropolis.

Oblivious to his filthy surroundings, Astroulas got comfortable in his bed and was just about to shut his optics-

-when he heard a soft "thunk" on his roof.

First he thought it was rain. No, there wasn't any rain on Cybertron. Then maybe it was...

Astroulas didn't have time to finish the thought as some type of black goo quickly enveloped him, and his vision blacked out.

* * *

Taran examined his new body. He transformed into his alternate mode, just to see what it would look like. It didn't look like anything- just some type of spacecraft. He transformed back.

"Excellent!" Taran snickered. "Now Tarad will never find me, and I can carry out my plan with these Transformers! Every Vexoran thinks I'm dead! BWAHAHAHAHA!"

Taran's laugh echoed out of the small shack he was in and into the alleys of Cybertropolis.

"YOU did this!" Depth Charge yelled, charging at Protoform X amidst the flaming wreckage of the former colony Omicron.

"Oooh, a very clever one you are," X replied, leveling his cannon at Depth Charge. "A pity you must die."

Protoform X wordlessly fired his triple-barrel cannon twice, Depth Charge just barely managing to dodge the blasts.

"You're gonna hafta to do better than that if you want to beat me, pal," Depth Charge replied.

"Fine," X said, his face cracked into a mischievious grin (or, at least, the closest he could get to it). He pointed his barrel cannon at the downed form of Claw Clash. "Surrender or the shrimp goes offline- permanently."

Depth Charge widened his eyes in surprise, then narrowed them in anger. His eyes darted around quickly, seeing if there was something he could shoot to distract Protoform X- anything to get his enemy's attention off of Claw Clash. He saw Cybersub sneaking up behind Protoform X, his cyber-machete raised. Depth Charge grinned a bit, then quickly set his "mouth" back to a neutral position- he didn't want X to know what was going on.

"Fine, have it your way," Depth Charge muttered, reluctantly dropping his weapon and raising his hands in the air.

"Good, good," X said approvingly. "Now, come-"

Protoform X was interrupted as Cybersub leapt on him, the Maximal using his knife to stab a couple of holes in X's chestplate.

"Gah, get OFF!" X said, hurling Cybersub over the killer's own shoulders and down at Depth Charge's feet.

Seeing that X was momentarily distracted by Cybersub, Depth Charge quickly picked up his gun and started shooting it relentlessly at X. Cybersub quickly recovered, and did the same with his double-barrel missle launcher.

"GAH...NOOO!!!" X screamed as the onslaught pounded him mercilessly, pushing him back to the intersection behind him, where he fell to the ground, in temporary stasis lock.

"Cybersub, see if there's any functioning comlink stations and see if you can get the Cybertronian High Guard," Depth Charge said to his comrade, his eyes never leaving X's form. "We need to figure out what to do with him."

Cybersub nodded wordlessly, transformed to his vehicle mode, and flew off.

Depth Charge looked around at the wreckage of his colony, his face now displaying an emotion that few 'bots had ever seen on his visage- a look of sorrow.

"I could have saved them..." Depth Charge muttered to himself, lowering his head in shame. "If only I hadn't decided to wait and spend the night in Cybertron... if only I had got off my lazy skidplate and gotten here last night, I could have stopped all this from happening... but I didn't....."

* * *

Depth Charge was so mad, he thought his heat sinks were going to blow.

After that incident on Omicron, the Cybertronian High Guard had arrived and had taken Protoform X and locked him in an adamantium-reinforced stasis pod, to prevent him from escaping, and spraypainted a huge X on the pod to keep anyone from opening it accidentally. The High Guard, along with Depth Charge, Cybersub, and a repaired Claw Clash, took the pod back to Cybertron. Soon afterwards, the matter was reported to the High Council, and within a few days, a meeting was held, with all the top officers and council members attending. The High Council had ruled that Protoform X was too dangerous to keep on Cybertron, but instead of incinerating the pod (the option Depth Charge suggested), they decided to store the pod on an exploration ship, the Axalon, which was scheduled to make its first voyage into space in a few months. The owner of the ship was none other than one of the 'bots Depth Charge most hated; Optimus Primal.

Many years earlier, Depth Charge and Optimus Primal had served together in the Great War. Depth Charge and Optimus had been acquaintances- not friends, just acquaintances- back then. Once though, in a battle on the planet of Araknor IV, Optimus Primal had made a mistake that had cost several members of the Autobots their lives. The details weren't important, but Depth Charge had lost a few friends in that fatal mistake. His acquaintance with Optimus fell to utter hate for the Maximal captain. Depth Charge didn't trust Optimus anymore, convinced that if the captain had screwed up once, then Optimus would continue to be incompetent as long as he lived.

Unbeknownst to Depth Charge, Optimus felt extremely guilty about his fatal mistake. He had told Depth Charge about it, but the large Maximal didn't believe him for a second.

Depth Charge walked into a nearby bar to get the image of Optimus Primal accidentally letting Protoform X free out of his head.

* * *

Terrortron slumped in his jail cell and sighed, soon followed by Terminator. Both were in robot mode.

Terrortron looked much like his Beast Warrior counterpart, with many of the same features and build. The only things that were different were that instead of having a pterodactyl rear on his chest, he had an aft of a jet, and the cockpit of the plane extended out of his back a little.

Terminator, however, looked almost entirely different. The only thing he had that resembled his counterpart was his face- the only thing different was that his eyes weren't multifaceted, and looked like large optics. His propellers from his helicopter mode stuck out of his back like wings, and the cockpit formed his chest. His arms and legs were blocky, like most G1 Transformers, and yellow.

_This is it,_ Terrortron thought. _We've already been arrested twice. The third time, this time, we get executed, unless someone bails us out. And I don't know anymore other than Terminator very well. Less than a week left in my life..... _

Terrortron's thoughts were interrupted by a loud creak as the door to the hall outside his jail cell opened. A police officer came in, followed by a medium-sized transformer with a weird mouth.

"You're free, you're bail's been paid," the police officer muttered, reluctantly unlocking Terrortron and Terminator's cell door and opening it.

The criminal duo couldn't believe their ears. They just sat there in bewilderment for a second, then jumped up and started chanting, "We're free! We're free! We're fr-"

"Shut up!" the unknown transformer yelled, instantly quieting the two. "I didn't bail you out of here just to act like fools! Now, come with me!"

Terrortron and Terminator looked at each other curiously, then followed John Doe.

* * *

"Heheheheh..... you lose again."

"Nuh-uh! You've got to be cheating, Deathtrap!"

"High scores don't lie, Jettor."

"They do if you CHEATED!"

"Hey, hey, hey, 'ere! We ain't gonna spend our time off arguing, now, are we, kiddo?"

"I....guess you're right."

"Now, whaddaya say we go back to our bunks fer da night? I'm getting kinda tired, myself."

"Fine, whatever."

Deathtrap just had to chuckle inwardly as he glanced at Jettor (whose vehicle mode was a jet, obviously) flying through the air, zigzagging like some drunkard to show off to everyone around him, going so fast that the jetbot looked like little more than a blue-and-yellow streak zooming over the streets of Cybertron.

Deathtrap had never gotten along with many 'bots his own age- he never knew why, really- but the younger ones were the ones he had always been friends with. He had been a spy for the Cybertronian Army for several years, and thus most of the people he knew his own age were generals or admirals. Most of them were very strict, and never seemed to party like Deathtrap did. Most of his friends were some of the new recruits in the Cybertronian Army, and it was this case with Jettor as well. When Jettor and Deathtrap had met, they had developed an odd liking toward each other, despite their differing interests. Now, all Deathtrap had to do was find a life that wasn't so routine...

Deathtrap finally managed to notice their upcoming apartment building ahead, and called out to Jettor.

"Hey, kid, slow down! We're heer!"

Deathtrap stopped and transformed from his vehicle mode, a silver-and-gray motorcycle, and Jettor followed suit.

* * *

"Kid, turn that HVI off! I'm trying to get some sleep!"

"Aw, come on, Ray Steno is almost on," Jettor replied.

The two Maximals were now in their small apartment, where they were on a two-week vacation from the military. It was a simple layout; a table, two recharge beds, and a HVI, or Holographic Vision Instrument, much like a 3-D version of Earth's 20th century TVs. Jettor was laying on his recharge bed, a remote in his hand, flipping channels on the HVI. Deathtrap was in his bed, trying to get some shutoptic.

"Just turn it o-"

"Hey, look at this!" Jettor interrupted, actually leaving the HVI on the same channel for more than two seconds.

"WHAT!?" Deathtrap said in exasperation, turning around to look at the HVI. A commercial was displaying.

"Tired of livin' life in the same old way? Want to add some excitement to it? Then why not join the Exploratory Mission Corporation? If you sign up, you'll get such great benefits as:

- Exciting, new planets to explore that will keep you from having any sort of routine to your life!  
- Full fire and home insurance coverage!  
- Money, money, and more money!  
Call now at 1-800-EXCYT to sign up!" 

Deathtrap's audio receptors perked up in interest.

This could be what he'd been waiting for....

* * *

"Optimus?"

The requested transformer sighed, quickly flicking off the switch to his compubook. Just when he thought he was going to get time to read it...

"Come in," Optimus said, half sighing as he did so.

The door to his office opened, and in stepped a large, bulky transformer.

"This came in the mail for ya today," the transformer said, plopping down a few data cubes.

"Thanks, Juggernox," Optimus replied, trying to sound enthusiastic, but failing miserably. The Maximal captain took the data cubes and inserted them into his computer, quickly scanning the different letters to see if there was anything worthwhile. Just junk mail, bills, and the weekly threatening letter from Depth Charge. Oh, well.

Seeing that nothing Optimus got required any advice from him, Juggernox quietly turned and started to head out the office door.

"Juggernox, wait a minute," the large Maximal suddenly heard from behind him.

"Yeah?" Juggernox asked, turning around to face his captain.

"What recruits have signed up for this 'Exploration Mission' so far?"

"Not many that aren't going to be dormant in stasis pods for a while, Optimus. Besides you and me... just two Maximals named Deathtrap and....um....Jettor."

"Hmm...Juggernox?"

"Yes?"

"Do these two know exactly why we're going on this mission? Besides just to explore other planets, I mean."

"Nope. The High Council thought announcing publicly the idea of signing up for the opportunity of being on the same ship as a killing machine wouldn't attract many 'bots."

Optimus chuckled a bit, the first time in several days. This whole Axalon mission being dumped on his shoulders by the High Council hadn't exactly been the most stress-free experience in his life. "You've got a point, there."

* * *

"Excellent job, Astroulas, yes. I did the right thing by hiring you."

Astroulas merely nodded, leaving the two 'bots he rescued standing before the famous criminal, Megatron.

Megatron squinted at the two 'bots before him, examining them.

"Hardly top material, but they'll have to do."

"Hey, what's that's supposed to mean!?" Terrortron exclaimed, stepping forward.

"It means..." Megatron replied, yanking Terrortron forward until the two transformer's faces were mere inches from one another, "That I spent nearly half of my stolen cash bailing you two slagheaps out of jail, so you will obey me to the very last detail, or suffer the consequences. Do I make myself CLEAR?"

"Um... yes, sir, no.. problem, sir," Terrortron said, taken aback. He wasn't used to someone bossing HIM around. He quickly backstepped, accidently tripping over Terminator's foot in the process.

Megatron put his hand to his forehead in disgust. "Ugh... Astroulas?"

"Yes, Megatron?" the aforementioned robot replied, poking his head into the room from an adjacent one.

"Escort these....recruits...to their temporary bunks."

"As you wish."

Megatron smiled to himself as he watched Astroulas prod Terminator and Terrortron to their bunks. Finally, a competent soldier under his command. Dynamo was quite the warrior, but the infernal 'bot questioned nearly every move Megatron made. No matter, he would be taken care of soon after Megatron achieved his goal. Scorponok, on the other hand, was loyal, but he was an idiot.

_Now for the final step in my plans.... _

* * *

"25 cycles until launch...," a monotonous voice boomed over the loudspeaker.

"Quickly, B.E.A.S.T, let's make tracks over there!"

"What!? But that's a launch pad- every Cybertronian in the city must be there, watching that ship getting ready to take off!"

"Exactly!"

"Huh?"

"Don't you get it? If we hide and try to blend in with the crowd, the cops'll never find us!"

"Oh... well, all I can say is, this plan of yours had better work, Maximus, or we'll be executed for killin' that guy!"

"Hey, it's a risk we take," Maximus replied, while he and B.E.A.S.T. made their way through the crowd as quickly as possible without looking suspicious. "We're bounty hunters. We win, we get mucho creditos. We lose, we get killed."

"Whatever, just shut up! I see the cops on the other side of the crowd!"

"20 cycles until launch....," the speakers blared again.

"There they are! Get 'em!" a nearby police officer yelled. He and the other cops started giving chase to the bounty hunters. The bounty hunters glanced at each other, then ran toward the shuttle, vanishing into the crowd.

"Spread out, and search the area!' one of the cops said to his partners, and they all did so immediately.

* * *

"Quickly, slaggit! Terrortron, lift off!"

"I'm trying, I'm trying! This ship you bought on the black market isn't exactly in top condition, ya know!"

"I KNOW! Now LIFT OFF! No doubt any survivors at the Cybertron Archives will have called the police by now, and we can't have them stopping us now- not after we've stolen the Golden Disk successfully!"

The engine roared to life, and the Predacon ship slowly started to make its ascent into Cybertron's thin atmosphere.

"Ahh,, yess...." Megatron said, as the crew all breathed out a sigh of relief. "Soon, very soon, the Predacons will rule Cybertron again. Terrortron, Terminator, take us far enough away from Cybertron to create a transwarp portal...."

* * *

Maximus stifled a yelp of pain as the stasis pod he was in suddenly got thrown into the ship, slamming onto the cargo bay's floor.

"5 cycles until launch...."

He and B.E.A.S.T., while scrambling away from the cops, had found some stasis pods that hadn't been loaded into the Axalon yet, and had quickly gotten rid of two of the deactivated transformers inside before taking their place inside the stasis pods. A few minutes after they had scrambled into the pods and pulled them shut, a crew came along, and the crew was now carelessly throwing the pods into the cargo bay of the Axalon.

Another two cycles passed, and finally, the crew completed their task.

Maximus let out a sigh of relief... that was, until he heard a crewman say something he didn't understand...

"Hey, somebody activate the protolyzer."

_Protolyzer? What's th..._

Maximus didn't have the chance to complete his thought. A mist suddenly came in through some vents in his pod, and his world went black as he was converted to a protoform.

* * *

"Jettor? How's the piloting going?"

"Okay, Optimus. Everything's working like a charm."

"Deathtrap? Juggernox? Everything okay at your stations?"

"Fine here."

"Eh, looks good t'me."

"Good," Optimus sighed, leaning back in his command chair on the bridge of the Axalon. Everything had gone perfectly well- the liftoff was perfect, the crew was perfect so far- well, except for Deathtrap- and-

"Optimus Primal, come in. This is a Class A Emergency."

Optimus Primal instantly sat up in his chair, and pressed a button on the arm of his chair that opened a communications link with the Cybertron air traffic control.

"Yes?" Optimus replied, alarmed.

"We've detected a ship near your vicinity- it's the same ship that was spotted near the scene of a crime that happened recently- the theft of the Golden Disk."

"Don't bother with an explanation," Optimus interrupted, "I know what you're thinking. Jettor, lock on to that signature and follow it!"


	6. Chap 6: The Experiments

Alien Saga, Chapter 6: The Experiments  
by Beastbot

_(NOTE: In case you don't know what a nanite is, it is a microscopic insectoid machine, used many times in science fiction. They are used in several stories to build things with excellent precision, keep creatures healthy, etc. "Optimus Primal Transmetal 2" looks like Sonar Transmetal 2. Tigerhawk is, in my story, only slightly larger and stronger than he was as Tigatron, and not NEARLY as powerful as he was in the TV show. Also, Blackarachnia Transmetal 2, in my fics, is more like her toy- she has the shoulder pads, the jaw-grappling hook, etc.) _

"Why have you called us, Father?"

"Come, Scourge, and you as well, Scarem. The experiments have been completed, and the transformers' journeys into their past memories are almost complete as well. It will be very interesting to see what effect our experiments had on these robots."

"But, Father," Scourge inquired Prometheus, "Would it not be more useful to isolate the new robots, and then run tests on them individually?"

Prometheus snorted at that remark. "You are not yet old enough to see the error in that, my son. Part of our experiments is seeing how the transformers react to each other as well. Thus, we are leaving them contained in the room where they were experimented on for a while, perhaps a day or so. Then, we will continue to the next stage of the test..."

The three Vexorans walked further down the hall they were in for a while, before finally stopping at a red door. Prometheus wordlessly opened the door, and motioned for his two sons to step inside. Prometheus closed the door behind them, and the trio watched in interest as, on a viewscreen attached to one wall of the room, a scene involving awakening Transformers played out....

* * *

Groan.... _Wazzpinator not feel zzo good. Feel like Wazzpinator get hit with ton of rhino-bot's ammo. _

Waspinator's optics came online, and he saw where he was.

_What iz thiz place? Wazzzzpinator not.... Ooooohhh, Wazzpinator remember now. Weird gooey-bots abduct Wazzpinator and other Maximalz and Predaconz, then make Wazzzpinator wait for while. Then gooey-bots take Wazzpinator and otherz to thiz room and hook Wazzzpinator up to gizmos. Wazzpinator not remember much after that.... Gooey-bots must have stopped performing teztz on Wazzpinator. _

Waspinator raised a red hand to his head and massaged his scalp, trying to get rid of the rip-roaring headache.

_Wait..... what izz Wazzpinator doing with someone's hand? Wait... thiz hand is Wazzpinator's! What iz happening? _

Waspinator slowly stood up, examining his body. Instead of yellow, most of his body was black or red, and his abdomen was gold with black stripes. He also had four transparent green wings that looked much more robotic than they used too.

_Ooooh! Wazzpinator iz Tranzmetal now! Wazzpinator happy! Beazt mode! _

Responding to Waspinator's thoughts, his internal computer willingly complied, and with a whir and a click, Waspinator converted to his new Transmetal beast mode. His beast mode eyes were more metallic and had a gold tint to them. He also now had large, straight, red antennae, and red insect legs.

_Ooo! Wazzpinator like thiz even better than robot mode! But, wait... if Wazzpinator iz Tranzmetal, than that must mean Wazzpinator has , vehicle mode! _

Waspinator's computer willingly complied again, and he transformed into his vehicle mode, now complete with a jet cockpit coming out of his mouth, and hardened insect wings made to imitate jet wings.

"Weeeeee!" Waspinator exclaimed, doing a somersault in mid-air. However, somewhere in his mid-somersault, he got confused, and crashed into the floor, face first.

_Wazzpinator needs to get uzed to thiz... _

* * *

Dinobot Transmetal 2's optics came online. He was about to examine his surroundings, when something caught his eye. He was staring eye to eye with... himself!?

_No, that isn't me.... The body seems to have more organic parts, and his face is blue.... What in the inferno is going on here?! _

* * *

Dinobot's memory files came online.. What happened? Last thing he remembered, he was looking into the faces of his Maximal friends, and then....

_Wait a minute!! If my memory serves me right, then I was fatally wounded after saving the humans from the Predacons! What am I doing.... _

Dinobot didn't finish his thought, as his optics came online just then, and he was staring someone that looked an awful lot like him right in the face.

* * *

Both Dinobots leapt bolt upright at the same time, the old Dinobot taking out his sword and rotary shield while Dinobot Transmetal 2 activated his laser eye targeting.

"What in the inferno are YOU!?" Both cried aloud at the same time.

This seems vaguely familiar... the old Dinobot thought.

"I am Dinobot!" Dinobot Transmetal 2 stated threateningly.

"Hah! Your memory circuits must be offline! I am Dinobot!"

"Impostor!" both shouted accusingly at the same time, Dinobot Transmetal 2 charging up his laser-eye while the old Dinobot did the same with his two eyes.

Dinobot Transmetal 2 let his laser fire first, Dinobot blocking it with his rotary shield, then unleashing his two green lasers at his opponent. Dinobot Transmetal 2 converted to beast mode quickly, ducking the blast, then lunged at Dinobot. The two soon became involved in a brawl, neither believing what the other was.

* * *

Cheetor's nerve circuits came online first, sending bolts of pain through the young 'bot's Transmetal 2 body. He had never hurt so much in his life... okay, maybe he hurt a little more when he was changing into a Transmetal 2..... and when he almost died because of a fatal wound Tarantulas gave him....and when he became a Transmetal..... but other than that...

Cheetor's optics came online soon afterwards, but everything seemed out of focus. He tried to magnify his vision to see if that would help clear things up, but it didn't.

_What the slag's going on? _

Cheetor tried to stand upright, and much to his relief, found that he could, although spasms of pain shot through his pistons as he did so.

_Something doesn't feel right.... _

Cheetor looked down at his feet. The claws on his feet seemed a little... thicker... than usual. As he examined the rest of his body, he found out that basically everything else was the same, except that the claws on his hands were a little bit thinner. The thing that really worried him was the fact that the two areas that he had noticed were a bit different- his claws- were the areas that were aching the most.

_What's happening to me? It's gotta be something those aliens did while I was in stasis lock a little while ago, but what? Maybe if I transform to beast mode, it'll slow down whatever process is happening. Computer, beast mode! _

Cheetor closed his eyes, waiting for the transformation that usually took place after he said those two words.

After a few seconds, he opened his eyes again, surprised that nothing had happened.

_Computer, BEAST MODE! _

Nothing happened.

_Ahh, slaggit, the stupid... _

Cheetor collapsed into stasis lock so fast, he didn't even know he did so.

* * *

Megatron stood up and dusted himself off. Strange, he didn't seem any different, like most of the other occupants of this room seemed to be. And yet....

Megatron's attention was diverted to a small fight going on in one corner of the room, involving a certain Transmetal 2 velociraptor and..... the old Dinobot!? How could this be!?

"Dinobot!" Megatron barked, referring to his Transmetal 2 servant.

Dinobot Transmetal 2, upon hearing his name called, shoved the other Dinobot off with his back legs and waltzed up to Megatron. Despite Dinobot's obvious effort to have his expression remain neutral, the Transmetal 2 was suffering from a lot of pain. His left arm had been sheared off below the elbow, leaving a trail of mech fluid on the floor behind him, and his beastly visage had several slash marks on it.

"What?! I am not loyal to you anymore; I serve only Rampage!" Dinobot replied.

"Yes I realize that. But...who was that you were fighting with?"

"He calls himself....Dinobot.... but it is obviously some kind of trick."

"Well, he isn't.... let me be frank, Dinobot. Before you were..."

Megatron's explanation was interrupted as the old Dinobot, from outside both Megatron's and Dinobot Transmetal 2's area of view, suddenly leapt onto Dinobot Transmetal 2's back, stabbing his dented sword through the left side of the new Dinobot's back. It appeared that the old Dinobot had taken quite a beating as well, as a large burn mark was on his chest and his face was dented a little.

Megatron, taken by surprise, barely had time to think before the old Dinobot jerked his sword out from Dinobot Transmetal 2's back, sending the metallic velociraptor into stasis lock, and pounced upon Megatron, pushing the Predacon down onto the floor. The crocodile-bot's neck was just inches away from the menacing tip of Dinobot's sword.

"State your allegiance...Megatron!?" Dinobot said, his tone turning from one of hostility to one of surprise when he found out who the green-and-gold figure was.

"Ah, my old nemesis is somehow alive again... no doubt the work of those accursed aliens," Megatron replied, a nervous tinge a little evident in his voice.

Dinobot just stood there, sword pointed at Megatron's throat, for a few seconds. After all, what the velociraptor had just seen in the past few cycles had been a lot to take in.

During this moment of silence, an odd thought came into Megatron's thought processor.

_Megatron, battle armor mode. _

Before Megatron had even realized what he had just thought, a reddish cloud seemed to envelop the Predacon leader, Dinobot stepping back slowly as he looked at the phenomenon.

The red cloud continued to swirl around the form of Megatron for a few seconds, then vanished as quickly as it had appeared. The Megatron that remained in its place, however, was not the same Megatron it had covered just a few seconds ago. No, this 'bot's entire color scheme was different; it was mostly red, with large, yellow, skeleton-like wings. Megatron now looked about a foot taller than he was before, and his left arm seemed to be composed of a dragon's head and neck.

Megatron looked at his new body in wonder.

_Internal computer, he thought, scan new body. _

_Body structure remains the same; outward appearance is Transmetal 2 nanite armor. Nanites are of alien origin. Command words, "Battle armor mode" engage the nanites to create the armor. Command words, "Basic armor mode" will engage the nanites to dissipate the armor and store it within themselves until its use is required again. Command word, "Terrorize" and command words, "Beast mode" may still be used in battle armor mode. Battle armor beast mode is that of a dragon. Warning; continued exposure to battle armor mode will result in partial nanite control over central processor. _

Ahh, yess... Megatron thought to himself. So, it appears these aliens did do something to me after all.... Still, they had to include that flaw in it. But no matter. This armor will still give me the advantage I need to defeat the Maximals... that is, if we ever get off this blasted spaceship.

Standing up to his full height, Megatron converted to his Transmetal 2 dragon beast mode, towering over the form of the old Dinobot.

"What in the inferno....?" Dinobot asked, fear evident on his face for the first time in who knew how long.

Megatron wordlessly whacked Dinobot across the head with his new armored tail, sending the Maximal flying into one of the corners of the room.

Megatron chuckled a bit, slowly walking up to Dinobot as he did so.

"I'd reeeally like to chat with you about what has happened since your....most advantageous demise, but I'm afraid I'm just a bit preoccupied, what with these aliens and all. I can't have you to worry about as well. Say goodbye to your pitifully short second life, Dinobot."

Megatron took a deep breath, but just as he was about to burn Dinobot into a charred pile of ashes, a punch hit him right in the face, sending the Predacon reeling back into a nearby wall.

"What the...?" Megatron said incredulously, opening his eyes to stare at the now fully functional form of Optimus Primal. The batbot walked up to Megatron, using one of the large claws on the Maximal commander's hands to keep Megatron pinned against the wall.

"You're breaking the truce NOW, Megatron?" Optimus reprimanded, "When we're stuck in an isolated room on an alien spacecraft? Seems to me like you're letting your temper get the best of you."

"Perhaps, Primal," Megatron said, kicking Optimus away from him and converting to his battle armor robot mode. "But in case you haven't noticed, the aliens seemed to have given me an upgrade. So don't even think about threatening me, because I can just as easily turn you into roasted bat wings."

"That's where you're wrong, Megatron," Optimus retorted. "Computer, battle armor mode."

Megatron watched in both surprise and disappointment as a grey cloud seemed to swirl around Optimus for a few seconds, leaving in its place a figure that looked somewhat like a cross between a bat, a robot, and a human. The face had long, leathery ears poking out of the top, and Optimus Primal Transmetal 2 now had several long fangs jutting out of his mouth. His hands now had long, scythe-shaped claws on them, and he had wings on his back that had some various patches of fur and metal on them. One of his robot legs was brown, the other grey, and his chest was now transmetal red.

"It seems the aliens have given me an upgrade as well, Megatron."

"It seems you are willing to fight me to your last dying breath, Primal, but I am not in the mood for such games at this time. Just make sure any resurrected traitors don't attack me for no apparent reason."

Megatron tromped off to the other side of the large, grey room in a huff, converting back into his basic armor robot mode. All this time, though, he wouldn't keep his eyes off Optimus Primal and Dinobot.

Optimus converted back to his basic armor robot mode and helped Dinobot get up.

"Optimus!? What has... where am....?"

Optimus chuckled a bit at his comrade's total confusion, placing a hand on Dinobot's shoulder. "It's a long story, Dinobot. Maybe I'll tell it to you sometime."

"You'd better tell it to me... now," Dinobot retorted, quickly regaining his "stone face" and shrugging off Optimus' hand.

* * *

Megatron sat down in a corner of the room, eavesdropping on Optimus' and the old Dinobot's conversation to see if he could learn exactly how the traitor had been brought back to life. The Predacon leader hadn't gotten much info- only that Dinobot had no recollection of what happened after he died in the tropical valley and before he woke up here. So far, everything else had just been Optimus explaining what had happened since Dinobot had "died".

Megatron was just about to lose interest in the discussion when a large, brown scorpion scuttled into his view, just a few feet away. The scorpion's eyes regarded Megatron questioningly.

Megatron squinted at the form in disbelief. If you replaced all the brown colors on this scorpion with black, then he would look exactly like....

"Scorponok!?" Megatron asked incredulously.

"Who's Scor-pin-ock?" the scorpion said in Quickstrike's voice. "Sandstorm, terrorize!"

The scorpion converted to robot mode the same way Scorponok did, and, indeed, his robot mode looked exactly like Scorponok's as well, except for some coloration differences. The only major differences were the scorpionbot's face; it looked like a combination of Quickstrike's and Scorponok's, with a gas-mask-type mouth and glowing green eyes. Sandstorm's height also seemed to be taller than Quickstrike's, but shorter than Scorponok's.

As the realization of what the aliens had done to Quickstrike and Scorponok dawned on him, Megatron stood up, towering over the new 'bot.

"It seems that the aliens somehow managed to fuse my old lackey's body with the fuzor's," Megatron muttered to himself. "I would have preferred two loyal Predacons to one, but perhaps this new comrade is an able fighter, unlike the other two numbskulls."

"Mah dayta tracks tell me yer the bossbot," Sandstorm said, saluting, "Though ah don't know why."

So, Megatron thought, he also seems to have no recollection of his past life.. er, lives... either.

"Well, your data tracks are indeed correct," Megatron replied, grinning.

"Ah guess so," said Sandstorm, stepping forward. "As you probably herd, mah name's-"

Sandstorm's sentence was interrupted as he tripped over Megatron's foot. Sandstorm, surprised, pushed Megatron down on the ground with him.

Megatron shook his head, placing his hand over his optics.

_Then again, perhaps he's just twice the numbskull he was before... _

* * *

"Airazor? Airazor?!"

Airazor woke up. At first she thought this was a dream, considering she was staring into Tigatron's face, a 'bot she had thought long dead. It quickly became apparent that it wasn't, however, as her core processor could never dream up anything as wild as this.

Although she herself was the same, Tigatron looked rather different- in fact, the only thing that even faintly resembled his old body was his tiger face. Tigatron's beast mode had somehow been infused with an eagle's, and the Maximal now had wings and eagle back feet. Also, apparent by the fact that the new 'bot was asymmetrical, Tigatron had been changed into a Transmetal 2.

"Tigatron?" Airazor said, standing up. She couldn't believe what she was seeing!

"Yes, it is me," Tigatron said, looking himself over while chuckling. "It appears I have changed a bit since I last saw you, as have you."

Airazor looked herself over after converting to her beast mode, remembering that she had not had her Transmetal form since she last saw Tigatron.

"Oh, yeah, I forgot," Airazor replied sheepishly. "Do you remember what happened since I last saw you?"

Tigatron shook his head. "Sadly, no, although if I did, I probably would say it was quite a wild ride, considering how I look now."

"Oh, you look fine," Airazor complemented, "Just... different. Change is good, though."

"I certainly hope so," said Tigatron. "Although, my name doesn't really seem to fit me any more. Perhaps the new name I have picked out for myself, Tigerhawk, isn't very creative, but it is quite accurate."

Airazor blinked, her data processors picking up the new name and downloading it into her memory. "It is indeed.... Tigerhawk."

* * *

Eventually, the rest of the Transformers, with the exception of Cheetor, woke up. They all found themselves apparently the same as they were before, with the exception of Blackarachnia, who had found herself to be a Transmetal 2. Silverbolt was delighted in this, although he was somewhat depressed that he hadn't been given a new form. He had liked it when he had a bit of canine in him, and the mystery of his alternate third mode, the one that didn't appear to do anything, still eluded him.

The only other two 'bots that were mad at not being given new forms were Depth Charge and Rampage, as a new form could empower one to defeat the other.

The Maximals had all welcomed back the old Dinobot, and, of course, the Predacons had merely harrumphed at his presence. The new Dinobot, however, along with any other damaged 'bots had healed mysteriously. Rattrap guessed it had something to do with alien tech in this room. He thought that maybe it produced something that healed damaged transformers.

Optimus and the rest of the Maximals were seriously worried about Cheetor, however. Even the "magical healing process" had not affected the catbot. Not only that, but Cheetor appeared to be changing into another form slowly- his feet now ended in what looked like some type of hoofs, and his arms looked more like human hands than clawed hands now.

And there was still that problem about what happened to Prometheus and Tarantulas.....

* * *

"Are you sure it was wise to leave them in that room without the anti-violence device activated, like it had been before?" Scourge asked his father as the Vexoran bodyguard turned off the viewscreen.

"Affirmative," Prometheus said, walking out of the room as he did so, his two sons not following him. "With the device on, we could not determine exactly how they would have reacted to each other.."

Anything else Prometheus might have said was not heard by Scarem and Scourge, as he had walked out of their earshot.

"Um... Scourge?" Scarem whispered, "When, exactly, are you going to put your 'master plan to destroy the transformers' into action?"

"Patience, my brother, patience," Scourge replied, a smirk on his hideous mouth. "You know the Vexorans will be watching our transformers day and night until the tests are over. After that, however, is when we will strike..."


	7. Chap 7: The Maze

Alien Saga, Chapter 7: The Maze  
by Beastbot

"Initiate the second phase of the experiments."

"Are you sure it is time already?"

"Do not question Master Tarad's orders. He sees all, therefore he knows all."

"Affirmative. Initiating."

* * *

To put it bluntly, Megatron was bored.

Sure, he had new Transmetal 2 nanite armor. Sure, practically half of the other transformers had been changed recently as well. But what was the use of it all if the only thing they could do was sit in this large, featureless, gray room, with nothing to do but twiddle their thumbs?

There had been the expected surprises and on-edge conversations for the first few hours after everyone had woken up, but then it had pretty much quieted down. Now, there was nothing to do- after the first few days, everybot had gotten bored with the pack of cards Rattrap had stashed in his filthy subspace (along with Primus knew what else). About two days ago, Cheetor had woken up for the first time, obviously in a lot of pain, and since then the catbot had been having periods of alternating consciousness and feverish sleep. Now, it was nearing a week of their being in this room and nothing had happened. Ever since Scavenger had found that tablet near the stasis pod cache, the one that said that the aliens were coming, everything in his plans had gone downhill. For a nanoclick, Megatron wished the aliens would disintegrate someone in here just for entertainment, but he quickly pushed that thought out of his mind. They might choose to disintegrate him.

Megatron sighed and looked at the side of the room where the Maximals were sitting. He closed his optics, then opened them again suddenly.

Wait a minute... something was wrong here.....

"Where is Airazor?" Tigerhawk called out, the first to put into words what Megatron had noticed was different.

"Funny, she was here just a second ago-" Optimus stated, then stopped, as the Transmetal 2 Fuzor he was addressing had disappeared as well.

"'Ey, what the slag's goin' on 'ere?" Rattrap said in bewilderment, as he noticed that Sandstorm, Beastbot, Silverbolt, Buzzclaw and Scavenger were gone as well.

"I don't know, but I don-" Blackarachnia was interrupted as she disappeared into thin air in mid-sentence. Optimus, Ramulus, Terrorsaur, Waspinator, and Depth Charge quickly followed her as well.

_Perhaps I am getting my wish,_ Megatron thought to himself as he watched Rattrap, Claw Jaw, and Rampage vanish before his very optics. _Perhaps the aliens are disintegrating everyone. However, this isn't exactly what I would call entertainment... _

Megatron's thought was interrupted as, in the blink of an eye, his entire world around him changed. He quickly deduced that he had been "disintegrated"- or, rather, transported- as well. Funny, he thought he would feel something as the process occurred...

Crossfire, Cybershark, the unconscious form of Cheetor, four 'bots he didn't recognize, and the two Dinobots soon materialized in the area around Megatron as well.

As his optics left the appearing forms around him, Megatron began to take in the scenery. All the transformers were in a long, narrow, grey, featureless hallway. Behind Megatron, the hallway curved off to an unknown location, and before him, it abruptly ended and turned at a right angle into another hallway beyond Megatron's area of view. The walls stretched up all the way to the ceiling, over 100 feet above them, so flying up for a view of the surrounding area was out of the question.

Megatron also noticed another peculiar item- all the Maximals seemed to be separated from the Predacons by at least 10 feet or so. Depth Charge's team, Beastbot, Ramulus, and Rampage's team seemed to be evenly dispersed among the two teams, as they had no designated alliances.

After the initial silence, Crossfire was the first to speak up.

"What the slag's going on here?

"Good question," a voice replied calmly, seemingly coming out of nowhere.

"Who's there?" Cheetor asked fearfully- he had woken up after he had been teleported here.

"Again, good question," the voice replied calmly. "Unfortunately, you do not have Class 8 clearance, so I can't tell you."

"What do you want from us?" Blackarachnia called out.

"We merely want to study you, and see what characteristics your war-oriented species has. Don't worry- we don't want to hurt you- that is, if you cooperate."

Nobot really wanted to reply to that statement.

"Now," the voice continued, "On to why you're here. Although we have acquired a vast amount of knowledge as to what your body structures are like, how you react to certain chemicals, etc., we still know very little as to what your battle skills are like. Thus, we have prepared this test in order to test your combat skills. You are in a maze, of sorts. When we start the test, each of your teams will be transported to different corners of this maze. Your goal is to find each other and, to put it simply, attack your opponent, using different strategies and such, until one or the other wins. The tests will continue until all the objectives are completed."

"And what kind of 'objectives' might those be?" Optimus asked.

"Glad you asked. There are three mechanical devices- I believe you call them 'stasis pods'- we teleported from the stasis pod cache to different locations in this maze. After all three pods are opened, we will count down five Earth minutes, and then the test will end."

"What if we refuse to go on with this 'test' of yours?" Beastbot asked, folding his arms across his chest.

The voice chuckled. "I believe you already know the answer to that."

Immediately, an intense electric shock ran its way through the circuits of every transformer in the maze, causing them to drop on their knees in pain. A few seconds later, the shock stopped as quickly as it had started.

"I guess we have no choice than to acce-," Megatron stated.

"Megatron...remember? The truce?" Optimus interrupted. "We aren't going to fight each other until we get out of this mess!"

"Perhaps, Primal," Megatron said, activating his nanite Transmetal 2 armor, "But I can not pass up the opportunity to gain more loyal Predacon troops, no."

Optimus merely growled in reply.

"The test will commence in one minute," the voice said.

"Aw, this is just slaggin' great," Rattrap whined. "Now we not only have the aliens against us now, but the Preds again as well! Eh, we're all gonna die."

"Shut up, Rattrap!" All the Maximals except Primal and Cheetor yelled.

"We don't have time to be complaining, Maximals," Optimus stated, glancing over his group, "We need to settle some things first. First off, who are you four over there?"

"I'm Prowl."

"Ah'm Ironhide."

"Me Grimlock."

"I am called Sigma Prime. Don't worry, we're all Maximals, like you- at least, I think we are."

Rattrap nudged his elbow into Silverbolt a little.

"Sounds ta me like somebots were dropped on their head when they was little, and know they tink they're Autobots...." Rattrap whispered to the eaglebot.

Silverbolt merely nodded.

"Um.. all right," Optimus said, a bit startled by the character's voices, as the first three sounded exactly like the Autobots that had their same names, and the fourth one sounded almost exactly like the legendary Optimus Prime. Sigma Prime also looked a lot like the old legend as well, except that this Maximal was completely white, and had no truck "extras" on him. "I'll talk with you later on exactly how you got here, but I'm afraid we don't have time for pleasantries. Now, here's the plan, Maximals, so listen up. When we're teleported to wherever in this maze we're going to end up, I want us to split up into three teams, one to search down each pod. Since our internal systems are able to pick up a stasis pod energy signature, it won't be locating the pods that will be the problem- it'll be getting to them."

"Now," Optimus continued quickly, realizing that a minute was almost up, "Here are the teams. Silverbolt, Blackarachnia, Ironhide, and Prowl, you're going to go after one pod. Tiga- er, Tigerhawk, Airazor, Dinobot, and Sigma Prime, you're on the second team. Rattrap, Cheetor, and Grimlock- you're with me. Any questions?"

Nobot said anything.

"Alright, then, Maximals, get ready!"

All the Maximals took out their guns and weapons, and everybody that wasn't in robot mode already maximized. Optimus Primal converted to his battle armor robot mode. Seconds later, the Maximals- as well as the Predacons, Depth Charge's team, Beastbot and Ramulus, and Rampage's team- were all teleported to different areas of the maze.

* * *

"Take a left here," Depth Charge said, following his own advice. Cybershark and Claw Jaw followed close behind him.

"But, sir," Claw Jaw stated, "My scanners indicate that the nearest stasis pod is to the right!"

"Forget the pods," Depth Charge replied emotionlessly, converting to vehicle mode to gain more speed, "I'm gonna use this opportunity to slag Rampage. I've been staring at his ugly face for several days, and I haven't been able to do anything about it. Those aliens want a fight, they're going to get one. Come on, this way."

Depth Charge made another left. Cybershark and Claw Jaw looked at each other questioningly and shrugged. Cybershark converted to his vehicle mode, and Claw Jaw hopped on. The two sped off, following their commander.

* * *

"Wazzpinator'z wingz getting tired. Even with new tranzmetal body, Wazzpinator need to rest."

"Shut up already!" Terrorsaur screeched. "I've been listening to you complain for the past ten megacycles! We're almost to the pod!"

Both Terrorsaur and Waspinator were in their vehicle mode, speeding toward their assigned pod. Megatron had had a similar idea to Optimus Primal's, and the Predacon troops had split up, each going after one pod.

"Dactyl-bot only fooling himself," Waspinator replied. "Predacon troopz are outnumbered by Maximal troopz. Maximalz win, get podz. Not fair."

"Enough!" Terrorsaur yelled to his companion. "We're here!"

Both Predacons transformed to their robot modes as quickly as possible, landing a few yards away from their goal- a stasis pod, at a dead end in the maze.

"Wazzpinator is picking up Maximal energy signaturz nearby...not like thiz..."

"I know, I'm picking them up too," Terrorsaur replied, hurriedly flipping open the stasis pod's computer, "This means that I -we're- going to have to work fast. You keep guard, and I'll reprogram this pod."

"Why Wazzpinator alwayz get slag assignmentz?"

"Because YOU don't know how to reprogram stasis pods!" Terrorsaur replied impatiently, his green claws flying over the pod's keyboard.

"Oh...Wazzpinator forgot about that."

"Let's see...." Terrorsaur muttered to himself, "Predacon programming accepted....Protoform's in good condition....Beast mode already chosen? That's odd... must have something to do with those aliens.... OK, initializing activation sequence... there, now..."

Terrorsaur was interrupted from his task by the faint sound of metal clanging on metal. Frustrated, Terrorsaur turned around.

"Waspinator, those-"

Terrorsaur stopped his sentence, as he saw that the 'bot he was addressing was in a smoking heap on the floor. Behind the heap of wasp parts stood Silverbolt, one of his wing missile ports still smoking, Blackarachnia, and two transformers he didn't know who obviously had the beast modes of an elephant and a lion, judging from their appearances. All of them were in robot mode, their guns pointed straight at Terrorsaur.

"Um...heh-heh..." Terrorsaur said nervously, raising his claws in the air, "I... um...."

Terrorsaur didn't have time to finish his sentence, as the top of the stasis pod behind him clanged to the floor, broken at the hinges. Grateful that the stasis pod had done its job, but frustrated that he had been interrupted three times in the past minute, Terrorsaur turned around to see the new Predacon.

The body of a manticore rose up from the pod- a very large manticore. Slightly bigger than Rhinox's beast mode, the large beast stepped out of the pod slowly, surveying his surroundings. His lion body, legs, and face were blood red, with a dark brown mane encircling his head. Above his front legs, two huge black bat wings protruded out from his body. The manticore's wingspan, Terrorsaur guessed, had to be at least fifteen feet. Where a lion's tail should be, instead this beast had a red scorpion tail.

"Manticron, terrorize!"

* * *

"Quit goin' so dang fast, ya flyin' freak!" Sandstorm complained, scuttling through the endless maze hallways as fast as he could in his beast mode. This, however, was not fast enough. Scavenger, in robot mode, was using his back-mounted rotary jets to propel himself far ahead of the brown scorpion.

"Quit your complaining, scorpion! You should be grateful that the royalty has granted us the permission to take on this most important task for him!"

"I'd be more grateful if mah legs weren't so dad burned tired!"

Scavenger ignored Sandstorm, focusing on the task at hand.

"My scanners indicate that the stasis pod is within a few miles."

"MILES!?"

"Yes," Scavenger replied, "After this hallway, we should turn left, and then..."

Anything more Scavenger might have said was lost to Airazor's audio receptors as the two Predacons moved further on to their destination.

Airazor slowly peered out from behind the corner where she, Dinobot, Tigerhawk, and Sigma Prime had been hiding behind, eavesdropping on the two Predacon's conversation in the hallway perpendicular to the one they had been walking down. The Maximal team had been tracking the signature of the same stasis pod as well, and had come to the corridor when the heard Scavenger and Sandstorm traveling down it. Although the Maximals could easily take the two Preds down by themselves, they wanted to listen in on the conversation- or at least, everyone except Dinobot did. This Maximal team, because of the influence of the partial pacifists Airazor and Tigerhawk, had decided not to get involved in a fight unless it was absolutely necessary. They wanted as many transformers functional as possible if they were ever going to get off this accursed ship.

"Good, they're gone," Tigerhawk commented, coming out from hiding as well, followed by Dinobot and Sigma Prime. "Now, all we have to do is make sure we reach the pod first, and-"

"What was that?" Dinobot suddenly interrupted, his optics darting from side to side.

"What was what?" Sigma Prime asked.

Tigerhawk heard a slight buzzing sound to his right, and glanced down the hall, frowning.

"That!" the Transmetal 2 fuzor exclaimed, pointing at the incoming enemies.

About ten small robots were heading towards them from the north hallway. They consisted primarily of a central, silvery-metallic body in the shape of a sideways oval, with two small lasers attached to the top of the body and 3 insect-like legs sticking out from the sides. They were emitting a low buzzing sound- what caused it was anybot's guess. As soon as the robots noticed that they had been spotted, they opened fire on the four Maximals, the recipients of the laser fire just barely managing to dodge the blasts.

"What ARE those things?!" exclaimed Dinobot, shooting at one with his eye lasers. The little contraption proved too fast, however, and jumped out of harms way easily.

"I'm clueless as to exactly what they are," Sigma Prime answered, taking his laser gun out of subspace, "But they've obviously been made by the aliens to give us a little 'challenge'."

"I was not aware of that," Dinobot answered sarcastically.

"Chalk one up for me!" Airazor exclaimed, as her machine-gun-talons took out a robot.

"These hardly seem to be a challenge," Dinobot said, taking out a few more robots while dodging a few laser blasts.

Within a few more minutes, the Maximal team had taken out all the robots, with only a few minor burn marks and laser hits taken upon themselves.

"Well, that was easy," Airazor said.

"A little TOO easy, I'm afraid," Sigma Prime replied, pointing to one of the drones they had demolished first. The drone seemed to be healing itself. However, instead of pulling its scattered parts together to make itself whole again, each part seemed to be making a NEW drone. Within seconds, the demolished drone has somehow managed to become five fully active drones! The other destroyed drones started to stir and heal themselves as well.

"You had to open your big mouth!" Dinobot accused, following the others as they ran away from the rapidly recuperating drones.

* * *

"Finally! We're at tha dang pod! Let's get this over with!"

Sandstorm terrorized and stepped over to the pod, lying at another dead end in the maze, and began to reprogram it. While one of Sandstorm's former "minds", Quickstrike, had not had the technical knowledge to reprogram stasis pods, Sandstorm's other former "mind", Scorponok, had. However, Sandstorm was still just as clumsy as either of his former selves.

"Dang! Hit the wrong button! Now it's gonna take a few more cycles just to fix the problem! Stupid claws! Why can't I have fingers!?"

"Quit your whining, scorpion," Scavenger said, "We must be on the lookout for any Maximals. We have not encountered any yet, and that makes me suspicious."

"Gah, ya just can't admit that we finally got somethin' done easily for a change," Sandstorm retorted.

Within another five minutes, the brown Predacon had completed his reprogramming of the pod, and the new Predacon stepped out. It was a medium-sized transmetal blue-and-gold octopus, with four blue tentacles and four transmetal gold tentacles. It peered at the two Predacons with its large, unblinking eyes.

"Excellent, scorpion!" Scavenger complimented, "You have successfully reprogrammed a new soldier for the colony! The royalty will be pleased!"

"Heh, waz nothin'."

"Hey, I'm a lot more than nothing!" the octopus stated, obviously taking Sandstorm's comment literally. "Octopod, terrorize!"

* * *

"Well, at least all we hafta worry about is Mega-dung this time, and not his pals as well," Rattrap stated, for once looking on the bright side of things.

The Maximal team of Rattrap, Cheetor, Optimus, and Grimlock had arrived at the third stasis pod at about the same time as the Predacon team of Megatron and Buzzclaw had. A battle had begun shortly after, but it looked like the Maximals would win, as they had the superior forces, and Buzzclaw wasn't much of a threat anyway, as the fuzor had no real weapons- or at least, none that Megatron knew about yet.

In the midst of the battle, Buzzclaw took out a thin shield from his subspace- a pink-and-red shield that became Buzzclaw's "tail" in beast mode. The shield quickly folded out into a larger, round shield, almost as large as Buzzclaw himself!

Megatron stared at Buzzclaw, blocking a few shots from Optimus and Grimlock while doing so.

"I thought you said you didn't have any WEAPONS!" Megatron yelled at the small fuzor.

"A shield's not a weapon," Buzzclaw replied, sounding like he was hurt that Megatron would think he would lie to his leader. "It's a defense...thingy."

Megatron merely shook his head at the fuzor's incompetence as Buzzclaw was shot in the back by Rattrap, and the mantis/lizard went into stasis lock.

"Heh-heh!" the transmetal rat grinned, "Well, I guess we know who's gonna be winning dis battle."

After a few minutes, it became apparent even to Megatron that the Predacon leader had no chance of winning, and the Transmetal 2 dragon flew away in a huff, badly damaged.

"All right!" Grimlock yelled, "Maximals win battle! Me Grimlock open stasis pod and welcome new comrade!"

"Hold on there," Optimus said, putting a hand on Grimlock's shoulder as the eager white Maximal stepped toward the pod. "Rattrap has to reprogram it first. You check with Cheetor, make sure he's okay- he's not been feeling very well lately, it looks like he's slowly changing into...something."

As Rattrap set to work on reprogramming the pod, Grimlock went over to see the slumped form of Cheetor, sitting against one of the hallway walls.

"Cheetor okay?" Grimlock asked.

"Yeah...I.. guess so..." Cheetor said, obviously in a little pain. Within the period of a week, his optics had something that resembled pupils in them now, a first for any transformer- and it made Cheetor look very weird in combination with his Transmetal 2 body. His hands had become more human-like, and the claws on the tips of them had grown smaller. His feet had also formed into some type of robotic hooves, and all the metal "patches" on his body were gone.

"Don't worry. Grimlock make sure Cheetor stay okay."

Rattrap interrupted Grimlock as he finished reprogramming the stasis pod.

"Who-hoo! Guys, say hello to the new Maximal!" Rattrap said, stepping back as the pod opened. A medium-sized gryphon stepped out, eyeing the other Maximals curiously.

"Gryphtron, maximize!"


	8. Chap 8: The Plan

Alien Saga, Chapter 8: The Plan  
by Beastbot

_(NOTE: In case you're wondering, yes, liquid helium II is a real liquid. While I'm not sure if it can freeze on contact, I am certain of its other property, of which you'll find out about as you read on.) _

"It seems Depth Charge and the others had the same idea as we had," Crossfire stated, firing relentlessly at Cybershark, who was closing in on her.

"Gah, for once, me and fish-face here agree on something," replied Rampage, struggling with the transmetal ray. "Forget the pods, and target each other. My kind of idea."

"Shut up and fight," said Depth Charge menacingly, punching Rampage in the face.

"Oh, and so anxious, too. I like that," Rampage calmly stated, recovering from the blow and kicking Depth Charge in the stomach. "It will make feasting on your spark all the more worthwhile."

The fighting continued for a few more minutes, neither Depth Charge's crew nor Rampage's gaining any real advantage. Claw Jaw was the first to hear the low rumbling.

Claw Jaw, while dodging one of Dinobot Transmetal 2's laser blasts, suddenly stopped at the soft rumbling sound, allowing the laser to graze his arm.

Wincing at his stupidity, but still alarmed, Claw Jaw called out, "Hey, anybody hear what I'm hearing?"

The surrounding battle almost instantly stopped as the rumbling grew louder. Two thick iron walls slowly emerged from the ground, as wide as the maze hallway the two teams were in. They the iron walls continued to rise up from the ground, blocking the only ways out of the surrounding area.

"They're trying to cage us in!" Cybershark yelled, running quickly toward one of the rising walls, seeing if he could get over it before it was too late. He wasn't fast enough, however, as the walls quickly enclosed the two groups of 'bots in their little arena.

"Great! Now what're we gonna do?" said Cybershark dejectedly.

"Do you have to ask?" Depth Charge said, starting up the battle again by opening fire on Rampage. "The aliens obviously closed us up in here so we could continue to fight! They must want us to keep fighting!"

"Incorrect," replied a monotonous voice that seemed to emanate from the air itself. "You are not following the procedure laid out at the beginning of the test. Stop this foolishness now and concentrate on what we want you to concentrate on- the stasis pods."

"Make us," Rampage spat.

"Um...I really don't think you should have said that..." said Cybershark nervously.

"As you wish," the voice replied. "You are officially disqualified from the test."

An intense electric shock immediately shook the six Transformer's bodies, and they all went into a painful stasis lock.

* * *

Beastbot sighed. "Of course, Depth Charge's team and Rampage's team are probably fighting..."

"....the Maximals and Predacons probably got their hands full..." continued Ramulus.

"...and of course, we're stuck with nothing to do," Beastbot finished. "We can't possibly get a pod, because we don't stand a chance against a TEAM of Maximals or Preds."

"Hey, what's that?" Ramulus asked, ignoring his partner and pointing at a big iron cauldron sitting in the middle of the hallway a few hundred yards ahead.

"A cauldron, duh."

"Yeah, I know THAT, but why's it in the middle of the hallway?"

Ramulus soon got the answer to that question. As soon as the Maximal had finished his sentence, the giant cauldron slowly tipped over, and a clear, steamy liquid poured out of the container, rushing toward the two transformers.

"I don't like the looks of this..." said Beastbot nervously. "Computer, scan liquid substance, coordinates 5, 7, 40 and closing."

"Substance matches chemical composition of helium II liquid."

"Aw, slag," Beastbot mumbled, taking off in the opposite direction as the helium II. "Ramulus, run!"

"Why?" Ramulus questioned, although still obeying Beastbot's order. "It's just a bunch of hot water."

"No, it's not," replied Beastbot. "It's helium II liquid. If it touches you, you'll freeze up like an ice cube. It also can-"

"Hang on, I think I know what to do," Ramulus interrupted, his optics shifting from the helium II heading toward them to the upcoming dead end. Gaining an extra burst of speed, Ramulus jumped onto the oncoming dead end wall, using the "energon suckers" mounted on his knuckles to hand on to the wall.

"Beastbot, grab on to my hand!" Ramulus yelled, stretching out a hand toward the fuzor. "The liquid can't reach us if we're hanging on to this wall above it!"

"That won't work!" yelled Beastbot frantically, the helium II rushing towards the two 'bots at an alarming rate. "Helium II has the amazing property to flow uphill!"

Before Beastbot could say anything more, the helium II liquid splashed over his body, freezing the fuzor's entire body on the spot, and continued to rush toward the wall that Ramulus was clinging to.

"Oh, slag," Ramulus mumbled as the liquid hit the wall he was hanging onto and started to flow UP the wall, freezing the Transmetal 2 in a split second.

* * *

Scourge chuckled as he watched the frozen forms of the bounty hunters disappear under the onslaught of the helium II liquid.

"Well, they completely failed that test, brother," Scourge mentioned to his younger sibling, Scarem. "Perhaps it won't be so hard to take out these transformers after all."

* * *

"Manticron, terrorize!"

The large manticore's head folded to become his chest. His lower lion legs swung down to become his robot feet. His scorpion tail swung to behind his head, like Sandstorm's. His upper lion legs folded up and his feet split to form claw-hands, like the original Dinobot's. His wings folded back behind his back, and did not shrink, but folded like Silverbolt's, when the Maximal was a fuzor. To finish off his transformation, the manticore's overall size enlarged to make his robot mode only slightly smaller than Rampage's.

Manticron's silver robot face looked very fearsome, and looked somewhat like a fusion of Cheetor's and Beastbot's face. His mouth had several large teeth poking out of it, and he had two large "ears" poking out of the top of it, like the original Cheetor's.

The large transformer turned to look at the Maximals that had their guns still pointed at Terrorsaur. Manticron's optics narrowed- his internal systems had obviously identified Blackarachnia, Prowl, Ironhide, and Silverbolt as the enemy.

The Maximals, stunned for a while at the arrival of the new Pred, finally regained their senses and re-aimed their guns/cannons/missiles at Manticron.

"We mean you no harm," said Silverbolt slowly. "However, if you-"

"Save it," said Manticron in a harsh, deep voice. Quickly, the Predacon took out two katana swords from his subspace, flinging one like a boomerang toward the Maximals. The swords swung around in a half-circle, slicing off half of Blackarachnia's right arm as it did so. Blackarachnia screeched in both pain and surprise, falling to the ground. The sword returned to Manticron's hand, the Predacon grasping it in one easy motion.

"Blackarachnia!" Silverbolt cried, kneeling down beside the Transmetal 2 spider. It was too late- Blackarachnia had already gone into stasis lock.

Silverbolt looked up at Manticron, his eyes filled with rage. "You...MONSTER!"

"Why, thank you," replied Manticron, half-chuckling. Terrorsaur quickly joined in.

Silverbolt was so angry, he couldn't think straight. A command entered his neuroprocessor- one that he hadn't put there, and before the enraged eagle knew what he was doing, he was yelling a command to the other two Maximals still functional.

"Prowl, Ironhide, Stage 1 Transformation!!!"

Prowl and Ironhide looked at him questioningly.

"Ah, what?" Ironhide said, unsure of what he had just been commanded to do.

"Stage 1 Transformation!" Silverbolt repeated, converting to a mode that looked somewhat like a cross between an eagle and a missle launcher.

"What ahre you doin'?" questioned Ironhide.

"NOW!!" commanded , stage 1 transformation."

Ironhide quickly transformed into something that looked like a large set of gray and red arms and legs.

"Whoa! Ah didn't know ah had this!"

"What are they doing!?" questioned Terrorsaur.

"Computer, stage 1 transformation!" Prowl stated.

The lionbot transformed to something that resembled a large head with a mane.

"I'm not sure, but it ends now," Manticron stated emotionlessly, again throwing one his swords like a boomerang at the three figures.

Seeing the incoming sword, Silverbolt quickly shouted out the command, "Prowl, Ironhide, merge to form-"

"MAGNABOSS!" All three yelled, before they knew what they were saying. The three oddly transformed Maximals suddenly leaped up and combined, a white flash of light emitted from their combined form....

When the light had died down, Manticron and Terrorsaur looked the new, huge figure standing before them. To their horror, the figure had caught Manticron's sword, crushing it in its bare hands.

"WHO DEFIES MAGNABOSS?" the figure demanded in a bellowing tone, that sounded like a deeper version of the voice of Silverbolt, Ironhide, and Prowl combined. The figure was huge, only slightly smaller than Optimal Optimus, and its body was obviously that of Prowl's, Ironhide's, and Silverbolt's combined. Magnaboss' arms and legs were that of Ironhide's, large with gray elephant "flesh" covering the upper arms. The lower arms were red and white. The legs were basically the same, except the feet were Ironhide's large hands. The head was the large head with the mane mentioned earlier, but not Silverbolt's eagle head rested on top of it as well. The main body was a combination of Prowl's, Silverbolt's, and Ironhide's. Ironhide's back formed the chest plate, while Silverbolt's missile launchers formed the sides of the chest. Prowl's main body formed the internal structure of the body, making it solid and strong.

"U-uh...um..maybe we should leave, Manticron," Terrorsaur mumbled nervously, backing slowly towards the larger Predacon.

"Shut up, wimp," said Manticron, smacking Terrorsaur with his hand into the wall. The Transmetal slumped down, obviously in a lot of pain. "Manticron doesn't back away from anyone."

"HAVE IT YOUR WAY," boomed Magnaboss. The giant reached behind his back, taking out a huge sword from subspace. Ironhide's guns made up the main body of the weapon, Silverbolt's swords made up the blades, and Prowl's claw weapon made up the handle.

"Come here, sweetie, and give Daddy a kiss," Manticron retorted sarcastically, lunging at Magnaboss with his remaining katana sword.

Reacting quickly, Magnaboss held up his sword, blocking Manticron's strike. Manticron sidestepped and lunged again, but Magnaboss blocked it again with ease.

"NICE TRY- NOW IT'S MY TURN."

Magnaboss swung his sword at Manticron, and the fuzor blocked- however, this was exactly what the gestalt wanted. The giant sword swung right at Manticron's smaller sword, shattering it with the force of Magnaboss' blow. Manticron stared, bewildered, at his broken sword, amazed at Magnaboss' strength. This gave Magnaboss just enough time to strike Manticron on the head with the flat end of the gestalt's sword, the blow sending Manticron into stasis lock.

Magnaboss then turned to the relatively tiny form of Terrorsaur, glaring at the Transmetal.

"Well, um... hehe..." stuttered Terrorsaur, raising his hands up in a helpless gesture. "I... uh... g-guess ya got m-me... heheh.... you win..."

"GO!"

"Um.... y-yes... Mr. Magnaboss, sir...."

Terrorsaur quickly converted to beast mode and flapped out of Magnaboss' sight as quickly as his transmetal wings could carry him.

Magnaboss, seeing the Predacon gone, seperated into his three parts again, each of the smaller Maximals converted to their respective beast modes.

"So, Silverbolt, how'd you know to do that?" Prowl asked curiously.

"What do you mean?"

"How'd you know that we were all components of a gestalt- and moreover, how'd we know what its name was?"

"I-I'm not certain. The thought just- came to me, and I said for us to form into Magnaboss before I even knew what I was doing."

"That's weird," Ironhide joined in, "That's exactly how ah felt when I yelled out 'Magnaboss'. Ya think it had something ta do with those aliens?"

"Perhaps," said Silverbolt, "But at least we know that we can form into a gestalt, if we are ever in trouble again- which we undoubtedly will be. For right now, however, my first priority is finding a way to repair Blackarachnia."

Without warning, the same voice that had spoken to the Maximals and Predacons at the beginning of the "game" seemed to resound from the walls again.

"Game over."

* * *

"Octopod, terrorize!"

Octopod's four transmetal gold plates making up his bulbous head split and folded back, revealing a turbine that folded back as well. Two of his organic octopus tentacles rotated outward to become his robot arms, while his other two organic tentacles became his feet. His four transmetal gold tentacles folded behind his back, like Tarantulas'. His robot head and chest folded out of his octopus head, connecting to his arms and legs while hiding his turbine and transmetal gold plates.

"Do I look like NOTHING to you!?"

Octopod looked more impressive in his robot mode than he did in his mollusk beast mode. His chest resembled that of Tarantulas', except that it was mostly blue. His face looked a lot like that of Claw Jaw's with Tarantulas' mouth, except, again, it was mostly blue. He looked mostly organic in this mode, like most Transmetals, the only clearly robotic parts being on his back. He was awfully small for a male, though, only about Airazor's size.

"Hey, there, pardner, take it easy, I didn't mean nuthin' by it."

"There you go with that 'nothing' again! Quit it!"

"Uh...sure..." Sandstorm said, leaning over to Scavenger.

"I think this guy's a few chips short of a circuit, heheh...." The scorpion whispered into Scavenger's audio receptor.

"As long as he serves the colony loyally, scorpion, that is all that matters," replied Scavenger, making no effort to lower his voice.

"Hey!" Octopod scolded, "Are you all talking behind my back about me? I don't deserve this! Who are you? I demand to know!!"

"Calm down, hombre!" Sandstorm said, stepping toward Octopod. "Ah'm Sandstorm, newly recruited Predacon. Yer one too."

"I am Scavenger, loyal servant of the Royalty," Scavenger said. "Welcome to the colony, soldier. The Royalty will be pleased at your arrival."

"Colony? Royalty? Did I miss something?" Octopod questioned. "I thought we were transformers, not bees or ants."

"His stasis pod malfunctioned," Sandstorm quickly replied, "Forgot ta give 'em a life, or somethin' like that. So, you're a Transmetal?"

"What's that?"

"Uh.... what you are."

"Oh, that explains it," Octopod replied sarcastically. "If it's what I am, then I guess I am one... I think.... wait... I'm confused."

"Just forget it," said Sandstorm, shaking his head. "Anyway, Transmetals... er... you... get a bonus vehicle mode, where as reg'lar old 'bots like me just got a beast and a robot mode. So, let's see yer vehicle mode!"

"Er...okay," Octopod replied. "Octopod, vehicle mode!"

Octopod reverted back to his beast mode, and then his four transmetal gold plates slid into his lower head to reveal a powerful turbine, much like Scavenger's had looked like before he became a Transmetal. The octobot leapt sideways up into the air, and in an instant, his four transmetal gold tentacles rose above the rest of his body, stiffened into propellers, and started twirling. His four organic blue tentacles hung from his body as his turbine fired up.

"Well, whaddaya think?"

Scavenger and Sandstorm merely stared at Octopod's extremely odd vehicle mode.

"What!? Haven't ya ever seen a flying octopus before!?"

Before the two dumbfounded Predacons could respond, the same voice that had spoken to the Maximals and Predacons at the beginning of the "game" seemed to resound from the walls again.

"Game over."

* * *

"Right, take a right!" a beaten-up Dinobot exclaimed. Sigma Prime and Airazor followed the former Predacon around another featureless corner in the maze. Tigerhawk had tripped a few minutes ago while running away from the regenerating and reproducing drones, and the drones had quickly engulfed the fallen form, pumping lasers into the Transmetal 2 fuzor until he was forced to go into stasis lock.

The three surviving transformers were at a loss of what to do. None of them had any fire or ice weapons that could slow down the drones, and the lasers, swords, and/or machine guns they had did nothing more than have the drones repair their damage and split into more drones. So, they ran, hoping to run into some other Maximals by some stroke of luck.

"Wait! My long-range scanners are picking up another Maximal energy signature besides ours! That means help is close by!" Sigma Prime exclaimed. "Everybody, go left!"

The other two transformers complied, but while turning, Airazor got hit in the head by a laser from the firing drones behind the group. She gave out a short cry as the laser beam hit the outer boundaries of her neuroprocessor. This damage to one of her vital systems sent her instantly into stasis lock, even though she wasn't severely damaged outside of that shot.

"Airazor!" Sigma called back with a mixture of anger and fear. "Now we're down to just two!"

"Really!? I had not noticed!" Dinobot replied back sarcastically.

The two transformers quickly turned a few more corners, following the Maximal energy signature, with the drones right on their tail. They were just a few hundred yards from where the Maximal was supposed to be within a few more minutes. They turned another corner, expecting to see a Maximal off in the distance, but instead they saw-

-A dead end.

"Are you certain that your processor is functioning!?" Dinobot yelled back, blocking a few laser shots with his rotary shield.

"This is a WALL, not a Maximal!!"

"The Maximal we're looking for must be just on the other side of that wall," Sigma Prime replied dejectedly.

"Well, now we're run into a corner. Any more brilliant ideas!?"

Without warning, the same voice that had spoken to the Maximals and Predacons at the beginning of the "game" seemed to resound from the walls again.

"Game over."

* * *

"Gryphtron, maximize!"

Gryphtron's gryphon head folded down to become his robot chest. His wings retracted until they were about the relative size of Airazor's before she became a transmetal, and his back lion legs folded back to become his robot legs. His front lion legs swung forward and split into hands that looked somewhat like the original Dinobot's. His tail disappeared during transformation, most likely into subspace to be used as a robot mode weapon. To finish off the transformation, two missile launchers came out of his chest.

"Welcome to the Maximals, Gryphtron," said Optimus Primal, stepping forward and holding out his hand. "I am Optimus Primal, Maximal commander."

"Greetings, Optimus Primal," said Gryphtron, shaking Optimus Primal's hand. Gryphtron was bigger than Optimus Primal, about the size of Rhinox. The fuzor wasn't quite as bulky though. Gryphtron had a face that looked somewhat like a combination of the fuzor Silverbolt's and Magnaboss' faces. Gryphtron had a "mane" around his head, like Magnaboss, but with the same black "mask" that the fuzor Silverbolt had. The "mask" was only on one side of his face, however, and looked like it was ripped like the Phantom of the Opera's. His eyes were also completely white- an odd optic color for a transformer.

"Looks like thee had quite a battle," Gryphtron stated in a deep Shakespearean voice, taking notice of the scorch marks on the sides of the nearby walls of the maze.

"Ah, great, another Silverbolt," Rattrap muttered to himself.

Gryphtron took notice of the transmetal rat behind Optimus.

"Primal! There is a foul demon behind thee!" said Gryphtron alarmingly.

Optimus raised an eyebrow at Gryphtron's Old English vocabulary, turning around to stare at Rattrap.

"No, that's just Rattrap," chuckled Optimus. "He's a Maximal, too, although he can be a little demon sometimes."

"But rats started the Black Plague," retorted the gryphon. "How can ye trust this foul creature?"

"How can ye trust this foul creature?" Rattrap mimicked, annoyed. "Look buddy, I'm just as much as Maximal as you are."

"I...am dreadfully sorry," Gryphtron said, obviously taking Rattrap's word. "I just... despise vermin."

"'Ey, shut yer piehole!" Rattrap shouted back.

"Looks like you two are going to get along just fine," Optimus said, sighing.

Without warning, the same voice that had spoken to the Maximals and Predacons at the beginning of the "game" seemed to resound from the walls again.

"Game over."

* * *

While the Maximals and Predacons were battling in the death maze, Taran was alone in his cell. Despite the fact that there was nothing to do or look at, his mind was quite busy.

_So if I use C duct 3 to escape, then take a right... _

..._No, that would put me at the restrooms. _

_Where to, then, from C duct 3? _

_My objective, the main reactor, is just on the floor below it... _

..._But you can't get there from C duct 3! You'd have to... _

..._Destroy the floor of C duct 3... _

..._But that would alert the other Vexorans! _

..._Only if it was energy originating from a Vexoran source, though. _

..._Yes! That's right! Besides the small sector where the Maximals and Predacons are located, the sensors on the ship are not wired to detect any blasts from an energon source! _

..._So, it's clear that you need the Beast Warriors to escape. But how will you get them out of their cell? _

..._How indeed... _

* * *

The hunter owl awoke from its sleep, ready to again search for prey.

It noticed something odd outside its nest, though.

A large metal pod had crashed about a hundred feet away, the smell of burning metal filling the owl's nostrils, making it sick to its stomach.

The owl was just about ready to fly away to a better-smelling location when the metal contraption started to talk in a strange language unknown to the owl.

"L-lifeform un-unconscious. N-n-needs immediate m-medical attention," the pod said.

The owl turned its head curiously, watching the mechanical structure.

"M-medical personnel can-cannot be contacted. O-only other o-o-option is t-to convert o-occupant to n-n-native creature to enable its healing abilities on t-this pla-planet. S-scanning..."

A small compartment opened up on the side of the pod, and a small device that looked like a miniature version of a satellite dish came out. A light orange beam was being emitted from it- within seconds, the beam had watched over the curious owl.

"L-lifeform scanned. C-converting......... f-finished. Err-error; anti-con-conversion abilities not f-functioning. O-occupant will be unable to convert back to o-original self. Need par-partial form tech as we-well. Par-partial form tech not functioning. Scanning for other t-tech."

Again, the miniature satellite dish started to scan again, only this time at a much longer range. The beam scanned over a rocky field nearby- a rocky field that looked like it had been used somewhat recently. A bunch of charred and broken mechanical parts were strewn all over the place, one of them a computer chip- a computer chip that had the label, "Transmetal 2" on it. The scan swept over the chip.

"Al-alternate form tech a-acquired. Re-reconverting.... f-finished."

The escape pod rustled, and a huge, black feathered wing stretched out of the pod...


	9. Chap 9: The Escape

Alien Saga, Chapter 9: The Escape  
by Beastbot

Once again, it looked like it was downtime for the Beast Warriors. After their battle in the maze, they had all been teleported back to the empty, barren chamber that had been in before. All transformers that had been injured or put into stasis lock were healed by the "magical" air, and soon, everything was boring again.

It had been about a week between the time that the transformers were subjected to the alien experiments and the time that they were teleported to the maze. Thus, the Beast Warriors had expected it to be about that same amount of time before they were going to be subjected to another test. After nearly three weeks went by without anything going on, however, they started to lose hope. After four weeks had gone by, even the most optimistic of them had become convinced that they were never going to see Earth, much less Cybertron, again.

Finally, nearly a month and a half after the "maze" test had ended, it looked like their luck might finally change...

* * *

_Cheetor, can you hear me? _

Cheetor immediately snapped open his eyes at the familiar sound, coming from both everywhere and nowhere at the same time. During the month and a half, Cheetor's body had changed quite a bit, but it was still clear that it had some more "mutating" to go through yet. His head had become less cat-like, and more human-like. He now had five fingers, organic in appearance, on each hand, and he had purple claws at the end of each of his human-like fingers. Large spotted crests had started to grow out of the back of his upper arms, and his legs had started to change their structure- it wasn't clear yet exactly what they were changing into. Because of this gradual change in his leg structure, Cheetor had trouble walking.

"Tara-"

_Shh! Quiet you fool! _The voice said, silencing Cheetor. _You want the aliens to figure out what I'm doing? They have hidden cameras everywhere on this ship! I'm talking with you telepathically, since any other attempt at communication would be blatantly obvious. Only you can hear me; any other bystanders in this room can't. If you want to communicate with me, just think whatever you want to say! _

_Okay..._ Cheetor thought, a million questions forming in his mind. _Where are you, Tarantulas? How can you communicate with me telepathically? Can you get us out of here? _

_One question at a time!_ Tarantulas answered. _For one, the name is Taran... _

* * *

Later, after Taran had explained everything that had happened between him and the aliens....

_So, you're one of the aliens? And you've had telepathic abilities for a long time!?_ Cheetor thought, bewildered.

Of course, stupid! Haven't you been listening for the past ten minutes!?

_Well, then, why are you contacting me? _

_Hehehehe...you see, I have a plan to get us off of this accursed ship, and it involves you and your friends-- _

_-Wait a nano, Tarantul- er, Taran. I know you- you'd never do anything nice for anyone else unless there was something else in it for you. What do you want from us? _

_You KNOW me? Then I guess you also KNEW that I was a Vexoran, hmmm? _

_Well.. _

_Precisely. I am a different guy on the inside than I am on the outside. Besides, I'd get out of here myself- that's enough for me, hehe.. _

_Fine, what's the plan? _

_I know the way out of this ship from where you are, since this is a standard C-DSC ship. All I need to do is bust you all out of there, and then, we'll home free! _

_Oh, is THAT all? What about the hundreds of other Vexorans on this ship? And you mentioned that you're in a cell, too. How are you going to get out of there? _

_I'm getting to that! Now, I'm going to contact the other transformers, and tell them the same things I told you. This will probably take a while, considering I'll have to talk to that idiot Waspinator too. After this, I'll contact everyone here at the same time, and tell you all the plan. Got it? _

_Yeah. _

_Good. _

* * *

Taran closed his telepathic connection with the Beast Warriors. All the plans were set. The transformers were all ready. Now, it was up to him.

_Here goes nothing... _

"Guard! Guard!" Taran suddenly yelled.

A questioning grunt was the only muffled reply Taran heard. He heard the cell door slowly being opened, and a large Vexoran guard with a utility belt on stepped in, gun in hand. The guard closed the door behind him, and turned the only light in the cell on- a small, dim light pad.

"What?!"

"There's a gatrib in my cell!" Taran screamed, acting like he was scared to death. The former Predacon ran over to the side of the cell closest to the doorway and the guard, cowering behind the large Vexoran.

"One of those little pests? Big deal, they're everywhere!" The guard said, surprised that such a legendary traitor would be scared of the Vexoran equivalent of a rat.

"He's over there, in that corner on the far side of the room!" Taran replied frantically, ignoring the guard's comment.

"I can't see nothing!"

"He's there! Remember, they hate light?"

The guard sighed, shaking his head. "Fine, let me get out my- ohhhh...."

While the guard had been searching his utility belt for a weapon to exterminate the make-believe pest, Taran quickly snatched the guard's gun, pointing it at the guard and pulling the trigger before the guard's mind could even register what had happened.

The gun fired a small blue electricity ball at the guard, shocking the Vexoran to death. The form slumped to the ground, never finishing its sentence.

"Hehehe...still got it," Taran snickered.

Taran immediately started to search through the guard's utility belt, until he found the item he was looking for...

"Heheheh....a passcode card," Taran said to himself. He grabbed the guard's lifeless body, tore the hand off (They're made of black goo, remember? It's not that hard), and walked up to the cell door.

Taran quickly put the passcode card in its required slot in the door, and when the computer asked for identification, Taran placed the hand onto the hand imprint in the door. The computer confirmed that the identification was acceptable, and the door slided open.

Taran wordlessly stepped out into the hallway, quickly shooting a few more guards before they could react. Taran then hurried to the nearest air duct, crawling inside and closing the grate behind him before any more guards discovered him.

The Vexoran in transmetal armor tried his best to crawl successfully through the air ducts, but to no avail. He was too big with his "transmetal transformer suit" on. Sighing, he morphed into a liquid puddle and slithered down the air duct, leaving his transformer body behind.

* * *

"How much information has been decrypted from Unit Rhinox's spark so far, Prometheus?"

"About 89.6 so far, Captain Tarad. We should have it all uncovered within the next week or so- this spark is very determined to keep its information secret, it has required a great amount of power to break its will. After we are done extracting all the information from this spark, we can store it in the long-term cryogenic chamber, while we divert our power to the engines. We will be back home within a month."

"Excellent. What ab-"

Tarad was interrupted from his conversation as a Vexoran soldier burst into the chambers, gasping for air.

"Captain- Tarad! Taran- has escaped! We found- three guards bodies- next to his cell! We have- a vague idea where he is going, though. His transformer shell was found in air duct C-3, and considering that that duct leads to the transformers' cell, we think he is going to try to break the transformers out of their cell as well. We are sending all available forces to the hallway outside of the room, but we fear not many will make it there before Taran arrives at the transformers' cell. We do not want to harm the transformers in the process of apprehending Taran, so we will get the traitor as he exits the room."

"Frag Taran for all the trouble he has caused!" Tarad angrily replied. "My brother will pay dearly for this, mark my words. He has been with the transformers so long that they have twisted his brain to their liking. However, you have done an excellent job formulating your plan, Vexoran. But I have one question. Hidden camera footage from the transformers' cell shows that they are getting ready for something, supposedly Taran's arrival. How can they know that Taran is coming for them?"

"The only possible explanation we can think of, sir, is telepathic communication."

"But that is impossible! Taran had no psychic capabilities when he abandoned our kind fifteen years earlier!"

"Perhaps, but he might have honed his skills, and gained the experience Vexorans need to reach their telepathic potential.""

"Well, whatever the reason is, I will personally eliminate it from his core one atom at a time. Scarem, Scourge!"

"Yes, Captain?" The two replied simultaneously.

"I want you to make your way to the hallway in front of the transformers' cell, stopping by the armory to pick up a C-465 electrifier on the way, of course. You are to arrest Taran on sight, and if he resists, shoot him. Got it?"

"As you command," Scourge said. The two Vexorans ran out of the chambers quickly.

_Taran had better not mess up my plans for the transformers,_ Scourge thought as he exited.

"Prometheus," Tarad continued, "I want you to stay here with me, and make sure the decryption of the info in Unit Rhinox's spark goes according to plan. Vexoran, thank you for the information. You may return to your post."

* * *

_This is more exhilarating than I thought it would be,_ Taran thought as he continued to move quickly down the duct towards the Beast Warriors' cell. _It reminds me of the days back when I was a secret agent with the Tripredacus council... _

After Taran had taken over Astroulas' body, he had quit Astroulas' old job, and had signed on serving the Tripredacus council, in order to get acquainted with a higher society of transformers. He was so good at his job, in fact, that the Tripredacus council had upgraded him to a secret agent within a matter of months. After the Tripredacus council found out that a renegade Predacon, Megatron, was hiring henchmen, they ordered Taran to sign on. He would be secretly keeping in touch with the council, and would tell them if Megatron committed any acts that could compromise the peace treaty. Taran had agreed, not knowing that he would be dragged into the Beast Wars.

And now, he had ended up back where he started... with the Vexorans.

_Ahh, here we are... _

Taran morphed part of himself into a leg, and kicked the door open. He then slithered out into the transformers' cell.

* * *

Hearing a small grate crash behind them (too small for any transformer to fit through, they had tried to get out this way earlier), all the Beast Warriors immediately turned around, expecting to see exactly who they did see...Taran.

Taran morphed back into his original Vexoran form, leaving all the transformers staring, open-mouthed, at him.

"You... weren't kidding about being an alien, were you?" Buzzclaw asked.

"Of course not! But we have bigger concerns now. My brother, Tarad, the captain of this ship, has no doubt found out that I have escaped by now. He's probably sending troops here right now, so we've got to hurry and get out of here!"

"Eh, and how do we do 'dat?" Rattrap questioned.

"See that door?" Taran asked Rattrap, pointing to the locked door.

"Yeah..."

"See this card?" Taran again asked, whipping out the card he had stolen from the guard earlier.

"Ooohhhh...."

"Now, everyone get ready," Taran commanded, stepping up to the door, card ready. "Remember, only energy, fire, and ice weapons will work against us Vexorans."

Waspinator sheepishly put his weapon away, having forgotten that little important piece of information.

"Also, we're going to Captain Tarad's chambers first, to get the passcode for the reactor chamber and the teleportation chamber."

"Um, Wazzpinator forget... why alien-spider-bot want code for reactor chamber?"

"I already explained this, you idiot!!" Taran exclaimed, impatient. "Because if we just teleport out of here, the Vexorans will just catch us again! We have to destroy this ship on the way out, too!"

"Oh....Wazzpinator remembers now."

Tarantulas sighed, putting the card into the required slot in the door.

"Here we go!" The Vexoran yelled as the door opened.

* * *

Scourge and Scarem entered the hallway next to the transformers' cell just in time to see five more Vexorans get obliterated by the transformer's various guns.

"Bah, they outnumber us!" Scourge exclaimed, backing behind a corner as a laser zoomed past. "I knew Tarad couldn't keep these transformers locked up forever! I shouldn't have been so cautious, I should have enacted my plan upon them sooner!"

"Um... by the way, Scourge, what WAS your plan?" Scarem asked. "You never did tell me."

"It doesn't matter now, it's too late!" Scourge said, beginning to run in the opposite direction of the transformers.

"Wait, where are you going?!" Scarem yelled, running to catch up with his brother.

"This battle is lost before it even started! Tarad was too intent on the tests on experiments, he never once thought of the possibility of the transformers escaping! Now, there's no way that we can stop them all, there's too many of them! There are only four times as many Vexorans on this ship as there are transformers, and we know they aren't all going to arrive here at the same time! This gives the transformers the definite advantage! I'm going to the pod bay!"

"You mean...?"

"Yes," Scourge replied solemnly. "We're leaving this ship."

* * *

"This is easier than I thought it would be, yes," Megatron stated, freezing another Vexoran with his dragon head-hand and kicking the alien over.

"The thought never occurred to my idiot brother Tarad that anybody could escape from his "flawless" security systems," Taran yelled back, picking up an electrifier from one of the fallen Vexoran guards and using it on another enemy. "He was so full of himself, he never noticed the few vital flaws in his security system that I did, hehehe."

"This is borin'," complained Sandstorm, who couldn't fight because he had no fire, ice, or energy weapons. "I wanna kick some of these alien's keisters!"

"You can kick 'em all you want," Claw Jaw said, some black Vexoran goop on his foot. "I did. It just doesn't do anything."

"Take a right!" Taran commanded, and the group followed their temporary Vexoran leader around another bend, blasting other Vexorans as they did so.

"We almost there, or are you leadin' us on a wild goose chase?" Rattrap whined.

"Here we are!" Taran said, ignoring Rattrap's comment.

Unfortunately, there was a large steel door blocking their way into Tarad's chamber.

"Rattrap, toss me one of your sticky bombs!" Taran ordered.

"'Ere ya go, press the two silver halves together to activate it," Rattrap said, obeying Taran's command.

"Why don't you just open it with that passcard of yours?" Optimus asked.

"Because, that's only a Level 2 passcard, access to a captain's chambers requires a Level 4 passcard- not just any guard can wander in there!"

Taran placed the sticky bomb on the door, activated it, and told everyone to step back. Needless to say, they all did. The bomb exploded a few seconds later....but it barely had any effect on the door. The only noticeable change was that it was now charred.

"It not work!" Grimlock said in disbelief, before firing his eye lasers at an incoming Vexoran.

"Wait, let me try something," said Tigerhawk, stepping up to the door. The Transmetal 2 fuzor was in beast mode with Cheetor on his back, since the mutating catbot couldn't keep up with the group by himself.

Tigerhawk breathed ice all over the door entrance, then backed away again.

"There Taran, now try to use Rattrap's bombs on it," Tigerhawk said.

"Why didn't I think of that!" Taran berated himself, taking another of Rattrap's sticky bombs and sticking it to the doorway. This time, because the ice made the door more fragile, the bomb blew a large hole through the door.

"Everybody inside!" Taran said, jumping inside the door. The rest of the transformers followed, taking out a few Vexorans in the process.

* * *

BOOM!

A large explosion sounded behind Tarad, who ducked behind a table upon hearing it, barely escaping the flames from the explosion. Prometheus was far enough away from the door that he didn't have to.

"Prometheus," Tarad commanded, "Take Unit Rhinox's spark and go to-"

"You won't be going anywhere," threatened Taran, jumping out of the smoke from the explosion and into the room. Megatron, Cybershark, Depth Charge, and Beastbot filed in behind Taran. The rest of transformers with useable weapons were busy holding off the Vexorans in the hallway.

"Why are you doing this, Taran, hmm?" Tarad asked, standing up and raising his arms up in a "no weapons" gesture. Prometheus tried to sneak away through another exit, but Beastbot's laser target lit up on the alien's forehead before the Vexoran could do so. Prometheus reluctantly raised his hands up as well. "For glory? For power? Or maybe it's because you're a little-"

A blast from Taran's electrifier went straight through Tarad's head before the Vexoran captain could finish his sentence. Tarad collapsed to the floor, dead.

"You never did figure out how to shut your trap," muttered Taran.

Depth Charge, Cybershark, Megatron, and Taran all aimed their weapons at Prometheus.

"You can kill me," Prometheus stated calmly, "But without my knowledge, you'll never figure out how to get Unit Rhinox's spark back into his body."

Megatron, Beastbot, and Taran could care less what happened to Rhinox, and got ready to pull the triggers on their guns/head-hands, but Depth Charge stopped them before they could shoot.

"Wait," Depth Charge interjected, "Prometheus is right. While I might reconsider if Primal was in Rhinox's place, Rhinox was an okay guy when I was with the Maximals. We can't just kill him."

"Fine," Taran said, lowering his gun a little, "We'll take Prometheus with us. But you'd better keep your eye on him, Depth Charge. He has a.. history of being like me."

"My pleasure," grinned Depth Charge, prodding Prometheus out into the hall. Cybershark took Rhinox's spark in Prometheus' flesh sack, and Taran took a passcode card from Tarad's fallen body, now slowly turning into a puddle of ooze.

"Let's head to the reactor chamber!" Taran said, jumping back out into the hallway.


	10. Chap 10: The Conclusion

Alien Saga, Chapter 10: The Conclusion  
by Beastbot

_(NOTE: In case you didn't know, Ceres is the largest known asteroid in the Solar System, being dozens of kilometers in diameter.) _

"Here we are, at the reactor chamber!" Taran said, huffing as he came to a stop.

It had been a long haul for Taran, the captive alien Prometheus, and the Transformers. The alien ship they were on was huge, about the size of Ceres, and the reactor chamber was near the bottom of the ship, almost three kilometers away from Tarad's main chambers.

Three kilometers of running, three kilometers of dodging shots from Vexorans' guns, and three kilometers of firing their own shots at the enemy aliens.

Tigerhawk had gotten a few small laser hits, which was understandable because he was carrying the extra load of the ever-changing Cheetor on his back. Waspinator had been shot into stasis lock a while earlier, as usual, and Prowl and Gryphtron had been put into stasis lock as well. Sandstorm now dragged along Waspinator, Silverbolt carried Prowl, and Sigma Prime hauled Gryphtron along. Beastbot and Crossfire had the task of making sure Prometheus didn't make any sudden moves.

The Transformer's losses were minute, however, when compared to that of the Vexoran's. Dozens lay dead or injured on the floor, among them, Tarad.

"Ramulus! Terrorsaur! Come here!" Taran commanded the two transformers closest to him, "I'm going to need you two to destroy the reactor, while I take the controls to assure that it doesn't blow prematurely! The rest of you, make sure no other Vexorans enter the reactor chamber!"

Taran cautiously opened the door with his passcard and peeked inside.

"Looks clear to me. Terrorsaur, go in first."

"All right!" the dactyl-bot responded, "Finally, I get to do something important!"

Just as Taran had anticipated, Terrorsaur carelessly romped on through the doorway. In Terrorsaur's carelessness, he didn't see the Vexoran clinging above the door, and thus, he got a swift kick in the head.

"Surprise!" the Vexoran guard laughed, jumping down onto the floor as Terrorsaur stumbled onto his skidplate. The guard delivered another quick kick to Terrorsaur's head, and the stunned Pred was out for the count.

The guard's victory was not permanent, however, as Ramulus quickly shot the guard in the chest a few times, vaporizing it on the spot.

"Good work, Ramulus!" Taran commented, "Now, let's go inside."

As Ramulus entered the chamber with Taran, the bounty hunter stopped in mid-step, staring at the reactor in the middle of the room.

"Whoa...."

The reactor wasn't like anything Ramulus had seen before. It glowed a color that Ramulus couldn't describe. Or did it glow? It glowed, yet it didn't.....

_Weird.... _

"Don't just stand there!" shouted Taran, already over at the controls furiously typing in commands. "Shoot it!"

Ramulus willingly obeyed, though still partially mesmerized by the awesome sight.

Firing at the reactor as quickly and as repeatedly as Waspinator gets shot in a battle, Ramulus pounded it with plasma bursts from his ramhorn-gun. It took a bit more time than the rambot had expected, but the reactor eventually switched from its regular color to a glowing, pulsing yellow-white.

"Good, it's started to overload!" Taran said, typing in a few more commands to the control panel and confirming his selection. "There, I've set it to explode in about 5 Earth minutes. That should give us enough time to get out of here- and it shouldn't give the other Vexorans enough time to figure out how to cool down the reactor again. Grab Terrorsaur, Ramulus, and let's get out of here!"

Ramulus quickly picked up the downed form of Terrorsaur, throwing the smaller Predacon over his shoulder, and ran out into the hallway, followed closely behind by Taran.

"Ya got it yet!?" Rattrap asked, exasperated, "These aliens are really gettin' on my noives!"

"Did we ever!" Ramulus replied. "We've got five minutes to blow this joint!"

"What the... sure ya didn't want to cut it any closer, now!?" Rattrap asked.

"Yo, guys!" Ramulus yelled to the other transformers, "5 minutes to get out of here! We gotta follow Taran! NOW!"

Taran motioned for the transformers to follow him, them ran off down another corridor. The other transformers followed somewhat closely behind, still being shot at by a few leftover Vexorans.

"Into the pod! Now!" ordered Scourge frantically. "The countdown computer says we've got only three minutes 'till this whole ship explodes!"

"I'm hurrying, I'm hurrying!" answered Scarem, "These pods are crowded! It takes a little while to get situated, you know!"

"Well, you've had long enough, now let me in!" Scourge retorted, kicking his brother to one side of the pod and crunching himself in, as well.

As soon as the two were situated, Scourge closed the seal to the escape pod.

"Prepare for departure!" the older Vexoran brother said, activating the stasis fields that would keep him and his brother from getting splattered against their seats as the pod jolted from the ship.

As soon as Scarem gave the OK sign, Scourge activated the launch sequence, and the pod shot out from the ship, straight toward the Earth.

* * *

"Straight up ahead is the teleportation chambers!" Taran declared, quickening his pace.

"And not a moment too soon!" Beastbot said. "We've got only about 45 nanoclicks left 'till the Big Bang!"

The transformers soon entered the teleportation room, disposing of the few Vexorans desperately trying to escape from the ship.

"There, I've set the teleporter to take you back to Earth in about 15 nanoclicks," Taran said as the transformers and Prometheus crunched onto the teleport pad.

"That's just barely before the ship explodes!" said Tigerhawk, "Why can't you just teleport us out now?"

"Tigerhawk?" Taran said emotionlessly.

"What?"

"I did it that way because of... this!"

Taran quickly snatched the unconscious form of Cheetor from Tigerhawk's back. Tigerhawk reached out instinctively to grab Cheetor back, but Taran formed one of his hands into a long blade, and cut a long gash across Tigerhawk's beast face. Tigerhawk growled in pain, shrinking back.

"Thanks for the Maximal, morons!" Taran cackled, "You should have learned never to trust a Predacon, even if he's a Vexoran! Bwahahahehehehe!"

Before any of the Maximals could fire on Taran, the counter to the explosion reached zero.

The last thing Optimus Primal saw before he was teleported back to Earth was a cackling Vexoran holding an unconscious catbot in his hands.

"Good-bye, Primal! Don't worry, I'll take good care of your puddy-tat for you! Bwahahahaha...."

* * *

The explosion quickly engulfed the ship, sending thousands of pieces of flaming debris streaming into space. It was quite a sight to see from Earth's orbit.

Which is exactly where the pod that held the Vexorans Scourge and Scarem was.

"Well....there goes five years of hard work and planning, all wasted because of a leader that was too self-confident," Scourge sighed, turning his head sorrowfully from the magnificent view of the blast.

"Uh... Scourge..." Scarem stammered.

"What is it?! I'm think-"

"INCOMING!!!"

"What!?" Scourge said, gasping as he saw one of the smaller bits of flaming debris heading directly toward their escape pod.

"Gah!" Scourge yelled. "Brace for impact!"

Both Vexorans cringed as the flaming piece of ship wreckage skimmed their ship, just barely missing a direct impact.

The Vexorans weren't about to get off easy, though.

The projectile hit the engine part of the pod bad, causing the pod to spin out of control, heading quickly down into Earth's atmopshere.

"Well, this is it, Scarem..." Scourge said weakly, shaken by the impact. "....Any last words?"

"Well, I've.. um... never told you this, Scourge, but, um.."

"What?"

"...I actually like you..." Scarem said, laying a hand on his brother's shoulder.

"Gah! Get off me, stupid!" Scourge said, shaking his teary brother off of his arm.

Anything else that was supposed to be said was lost, as the pod began to enter the Earth's atmosphere, and the sound of the friction between pod and air molecules became deafening.

* * *

Within a fraction of a second, Optimus and his Maximal crew were transported back into their home base, in front of the ancient Autobot spacecraft, the Ark.

"Rattrap, put the injured Maximals in the CR chambers," Optimus said, sighing.

"Eh... sure thing, Boss Monkey," Rattrap said solemnly.

"Maximals, if you don't mind, I'm going to go to my quarters for a while," Optimus said, his voice wavering.

"Optimus, wait!" Airazor said, running in front of Optimus to block his path to his quarters.

"Airazor, I really need to be by myself for a little while...I've just lost another crew member...." Optimus said.

"Optimus, I understand," Airazor said, putting her hand on her commander's shoulder. "Cheetor is like my half-brother! But you ca-"

"No, you don't understand, Airazor," Optimus said, shaking off Airazor's hand, showing an uncharacteristically angry side of himself. "As commander of this crew, I am personally responsible for each and every Maximal on this team. If I don't make sure that you all are in prime condition, then I've failed as a leader. I've left Cheetor to a worse fate than death- a fate at the hands of Tarantulas. Who knows what kind of sick experiments that...that... PSYCHO... will make Cheetor endure. I've let my crew down too often lately."

"Optimus, it isn't your fault," Airazor replied. "You did what almost any Maximal would have done in your situation- you gave someone the benefit of the doubt, and trusted Taran. It's not your fault that he didn't keep his promise."

"Maybe it's not," Optimus retorted, "But I'm still responsible for the safety of my crew members, and I was a fool to think that a slagheap like Tarantul.... Taran could be trusted. I appreciate your concern, Airazor, but nothing you- or any other Maximal- can say is going to make me change my mind. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go to my quarters for a while. Figure out what to do with Prometheus, I'm going to my room until morning. Until then, Airazor, you're in charge. Goodnight."

Optimus silently stalked off to his room, leaving a very depressed crew in his wake.

* * *

A dark figure- with wings- silently watched Optimus Primal walk to his quarters from a pipe high above.

_Hmm.......this species seems to show an awful lot of emotion... not something we had expected of a species this primitive.... _

_Perhaps I have underestimated this species... _

_..I must learn more of their ways, since I have become one of them.... _

..._.Perhaps I will observe the command center for a while.... _

With that thought, the figure silently spread its wings and took flight, headed for the command center..

* * *

The dark shape silently engaged its stealth mode, not unlike that of Beastbot's, and landed on another large pipe close to the ceiling, observing the events unfolding below it in the command center.

"'Ey, Airazor," Rattrap said, talking to his temporary commander, "We got some object coming down in Sector Gamma, near the ol' stasis pod cache. About the size of a stasis pod, but not the shape 'a one. You want me to send somebot to check it out?"

"It must be some piece of burnt-up debris from the alien ship, Rattrap," Airazor replied, preoccupied with something else. "Don't worry about it."

"Well, it is kinda jagged... yeah, you're probably right. Nevermind."

Airazor turned her attention back to the task at hand- she was conferring with Prometheus about how to get Rhinox's spark back into a transformer shell. Grimlock was standing guard, to make sure Prometheus made no sudden moves.

"So," Airazor began, "You've done nothing to the core of Rhinox's spark?"

"No," Prometheus replied, "Tarad and I merely extracted some information from it. We didn't injure it whatsoever."

"Then why did you insist that 'we'd never figure out how to put Unit Rhinox's spark back in a body without your help?!'"

"Eh, he did it t' save his sorry skin," Rattrap interjected.

Prometheus merely nodded.

Grimlock growled, and powered up his eye beams.

"Wait, Grimlock!" Airazor ordered. "Prometheus may still be able to help us- he knows a lot about Vexorans, he may know where Taran went, and where he took Cheetor as well. See if you can't find somewhere to put Prometheus- somewhere where he won't be able to seep out of- and lock him up in it."

"Me Grimlock think you making big mistake, bird-lady... but okay."

Grimlock reluctantly motioned for Prometheus to follow him, and the Maximal showed the Vexoran to his cell, each one keeping a very close eye on the other.

"So...now all we need to do is build our pal Rhinox..." Airazor said, motioning to the flesh sac that contained Rhinox's spark nearby, "...a new shell."

"Are you kiddin'?" Rattrap said, turning around in his chair to face the temporary commander. "We don't have the materials to build a full-fledged transformer shell!"

"Then we'll just have to make do," Airazor replied. "It won't help us much if our chief technician is stuck inside a flesh sac, now, will it? Now, Rattrap, once Prowl gets out of the CR chamber, I want you and him to see if you can't build a makeshift body for Rhinox."

"I hope you know what you're doin', birdlady..."


End file.
